Out Of Exile
by Shutterbug5269
Summary: My last multi chapter offering in the Agent Rodgers/Jessica Bennet universe. (I really mean it this time) Takes up the events briefly touched upon in Epilogue Part Two of "The Bennet Identity"
1. A Good Day Goes Bad

_Okay, many of you brought to my attention the brevity with which I handled the mother/daughter reunion between Jessica Bennet and Kate in Epilogue Part Two of "The Bennet Identity" (Yes, Nerwen Aldarion I mean you) I will attempt to rectify that with this, the very last multi-chapter story of this series. I expect at least five chapters, but no more than ten._

_Enjoy._

* * *

**Chapter One:  
A Good Day Goes Bad**

Katherine Houghton Beckett Rodgers pulled out of the underground parking area for the loft, hit her turn signal and pulled out into traffic. She was still seething a little from her argument with Rick that morning before he headed out for the New York Field Office. He had wanted her to use the car service instead of driving the sporty Alfa Romeo he had bought her for a wedding present.

She knew he was only concerned because she was ten weeks pregnant and he wanted her to be safe. She also knew that his concerns were not completely unwarranted. Tom Jackson, one of Hal Lockwood's former henchmen was still on the loose and Sergei, his favorite driver, was a burly former Spetsnaz paratrooper who tended to discourage unwanted trouble.

Under normal circumstances, she would have accepted his logic, given her new-found celebrity status, but she was meeting Ryan and Espo at the precinct for lunch and she was feeling hormonal enough to angrily assert her independence. She hadn't wanted to put on airs with the boys.

She didn't notice the black, late model Mercedes S-class with government plates falling into place behind her in traffic. She was having too much fun putting her sporty Italian coupe through its paces. She hadn't had this much fun since she had test driven a Ferrari 308 GTS for a BBC show called _Top Gear_ before she knew she was pregnant. (she had soundly beaten Tom Selleck's time with the same car) In fact she was pretty sure that was the night she _got_ pregnant.

She made it to the precinct without incident and had a lovely lunch with the boys who regaled her with stories about what it was like to work under Sydney Bristow. Obviously she had finally rid herself of the oppressive cloud that had hung over her since she started at the precinct after Janet Karpowski's departure and truly blossomed into a fully trusted member of the team. Ann Hastings seemed to be settling into her role as the low girl on the totem pole, complete with the requisite hazing that always came with being the new girl.

It wasn't until they asked how Rick was doing that she really began to feel true guilt about her behavior earlier that day. She knew the hormones from her pregnancy were part of it, but she had been positively awful to him and it had showed in the hunched over way he had left the loft that morning to go to work.

He hadn't been angry so much as hurt, disappointed and just a little scared for her. As she slid behind the wheel of her car, she resolved that she would prepare him a lovely dinner to make up for her behavior this morning. He hadn't deserved all of the anger she had thrown at him, and now the same hormones that had fueled that anger turned on her and ramped up her feelings of guilt. She sat for several minutes in the driver's seat with the engine running and tears running down her cheeks.

After composing herself, and fixing her makeup and eyeliner, she pulled once again into traffic. Again not noticing the same black Mercedes that had shadowed her before, a few cars behind her, but managing to keep pace with her sporty cherry red car.

The light at the intersection turned green, but as she pulled into the intersection, she didn't notice the out of control Hummer barreling through the light, it's horn blaring, until it was too late. The next thing she heard was the crackle of breaking glass and the loud shriek of rending metal as the larger vehicle slammed into her little Alfa Romeo.

The last thing she heard before the darkness claimed her was her door being wrenched open and the frightened voice of an older woman who sounded a lot like her mother frantically calling her name.


	2. Tragedy

**Chapter Two:**

**Tragedy**

When Rick got the call from Javier Esposito he was in the middle of the quarterly performance reviews. He had always hated paperwork especially when it came to this particular area. He worked with good people and it felt like a violation of their trust to critique them behind their back.

It had taken him the better part of a year to weed out all of Senator Bracken's conspirators from his personnel. During that time he rarely allowed Kate to come to the office, and only if she used the car service and brought Sergei.

It was part of the reason they had fought that morning. She didn't like being told what to do, much less being treated like she couldn't take care of herself. The rest he knew had come from the pregnancy hormones. Her words had cut him deeply, they had hurt and he had felt tired and crestfallen all day, but he didn't hold it against her.

He had answered the phone with a cheerful tone, genuinely glad to hear from him, not only for the distraction but also for a chance to check up on his favorite precinct. The two of them had bonded during his time there.

"Javi! Good to hear from you! How is the new FBI liaison working out?"

The first inkling that there was something terribly wrong was the silence on the other end of the line. Espo was rarely one to be at a loss for words. His next were carefully chosen, spoken with such empathy and desolation that it sucked all the air out of his office.

"Bro, it's Beckett...there's been an accident...she's being taken to Presbyterian...it doesn't look good...better hurry..."

Rick's hands shook so badly that he nearly dropped his cell phone. With a single phone call there was a helicopter on the rooftop helipad. Within moments he was airborne. He didn't trust himself to drive, and it would take too long to get there in rush hour traffic.

Kate needed him...right now.

* * *

Twenty Minutes later

When Rick arrived he was in full panic mode. Though he wasn't in the sorry state he had been when she had been shot two years ago, he was not processing his emotions very well at all. He marched up to the nurse's station in the Emergency Room and flashed his credentials.

"I'm looking for Kate Beckett Rodgers, I'm her husband."

When the nurse nodded her assent and asked him to wait she had the attending paged. When she approached, Rick double timed it to intercept her and they walked toward the waiting room where Ryan, Esposito and Lanie were waiting for him. He saw the younger FBI agent who had been assigned to replace him as the 12th Precinct's liaison. He seemed bored, like this wasn't worth his time.

"You're wife is stable, Agent Rodgers," Dr. Lydia Simon informed him, to which he exhaled a sigh of relief, "her injuries, for the most part were not severe, though there have been some complications."

"You are aware that my wife is ten weeks pregnant, Doctor?" Rick replied heavily, not sure if he liked the ominous sound of the word '_complications'_. It sang out to him like a funeral dirge for his soul.

" Yes, we are aware that she _was_ pregnant when she came in." Dr. Simon stated.

Panic sank its icy grip into him at her use of the past tense. "What do you mean _was _Doctor Simon?" He breathed out heavily.

"Perhaps you should sit down, Agent Rodgers?" she replied, not realizing it was the wrong thing to say.

"Just tell it to me straight, Doctor...right now!" He shouted, he hadn't realized that his hand had unconsciously drifted to his belt where normally his Sig Sauer P226 would be, but in his haste he had left it in his desk. He checked himself and shoved the hand into his pocket.

Her voice rang out quiet and even as she told him the truth.

"Though her injuries were not, in and of themselves severe, or life threatening primarily a mild concussion bruised ribs and a sprained ankle, the trauma of the crash caused a tear in the placental wall. By the time she was brought in, the damage had been done. Her own immune system perceived the fetus as a foreign body and attacked it aggressively, for all intents and purposes, terminating the pregnancy. Her uterus expelled the fetus shortly after she arrived, I'm sorry."

Rick staggered back a few paces at the news, his eyes wide, all color had drained out of his face.

"Kate...oh God...dear God...no.." he moaned out, as Lanie carefully took his arm and helped him onto the waiting room couch as the room began to spin wildly. The last thing he heard before the darkness claimed him was Doctor Simon calling for an oxygen mask.

* * *

Jessica Bennet fumed, alone in her apartment as she finished cleaning her 9mm tactical Sig Sauer. From her sources at the hospital she knew that though her own wounds were not particularly severe, she had lost the baby she had been carrying. She was still asleep, under heavy sedation, her husband lying in a bed next to her with an oxygen mask on his face. The news of her miscarriage coming so soon on the heels of the news of her "car accident" that he had collapsed from the enormity of it all. She really couldn't blame him, it was simply one blow too many.

She reassembled the weapon and worked the action sliding a round into the chamber and closing the breech, before slapping home a fresh magazine. Johanna Beckett, her old self, would have been horrified at the thought that she found disassembling, cleaning and reassembling a deadly weapon comforting. She hadn't permitted Jim to have any of his hunting guns in the house.

She checked the sharpness of the folding knife she carried since discarding the K-bar she had used seemingly a lifetime ago to frame Dick Coonan. She had never liked the thing, it was too bulky to carry regularly. Another thought that Johanna would have found horrific, comparing deadly weapons on their lethality and convenience for concealment, like she would have, at one time contemplated shoes, purses and other accessories.

She was going to have a word with the driver of the other vehicle. It seemed far too convenient that Katie would have an auto accident the one time she was alone driving a very distinctive car. If she didn't like what he had to say, he would not live long enough to regret his mistake. Another reason why she was no longer Johanna Beckett, and, in all the ways that mattered, never would be again.

* * *

One hour later

Her State Department security credentials got her past most of the hospital security checkpoints, even the NYPD officers standing guard near the door to Kate's hospital room. She had had to invent a threat to the budding mystery writer to justify the added security she was certain was necessary in spite of the lack of any evidence that this was anything but merely the tragic outcome of a tragic accident.

She was more than a little infuriated that the driver of the vehicle that cost her daughter her baby, and could easily have cost her her life was actually on the same floor, and not under guard or even restrained to his bed. That was until she overheard his conversation with a woman who had to be his wife.

"Janet...what have I done...dear God what have I done." he moaned into his wife's embrace.

"Shh... George, it wasn't your fault...the brakes failed...you did everything you could."

"But I heard the nurses talking...she lost her baby...the two of us have been trying for months...and I killed that woman's baby...I should have had the brakes checked sooner...could have done it the day before but I was too busy...it's all my fault...all my fault..." he sobbed into his wife's shoulder.

Jessica looked on as his wife tried desperately to console him, tears in her eyes and running unashamedly down her cheeks. She contemplated the silenced pistol in her purse, the folding combat knife in her pocket.

She had come here to threaten him, possibly even to kill him, prepared to conduct an aggressive interrogation to find out who put him up to it, only to hear him mourning for the miscarried fetus of her own daughter, while she herself had been consumed only by thoughts of revenge. Her own eyes were wet with tears of shame not only for what she had been contemplating, but that she had not even spared a single thought for the pain her daughter would be in when she woke.

She felt sick.

She fled, doing her best to school her features as she passed her daughter's door on her way to the elevator. Inside she was a mess, unsure of what she should do. She knew of only one man who might possibly be able to help her figure out what her next move should be. She knew what she wanted to do, she simpply wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do. As she breezed past the exit and out onto the street, her cell phone in her hand, she dialed a number from memory.

"The warm breeze blows colder after midnight." she stated into her phone when prompted, then hung up.

The head of Project Archangel doesn't simply directly _call_ the Director of Operations of the CIA. Even if he is her predecessor. There was protocol to be followed, especially since this was a personal matter. She would receive instructions later where to meet with him and when.

She hoped it was soon.

* * *

11:25 PM

Kate Beckett Rodgers woke in a hospital bed to find her husband seated next to her, clutching her hand in a near catatonic state, anguish and grief written all over his face. The last thing she remembered before she lost consciousness was the squeal of brakes the tinkle of breaking glass and the shrieking of rending metal as the other car had run the red light and t-boned her sedan on the passenger side.

Though there was relief in his eyes that she had survived, his grief had not subsided. In that instant, as her eyes locked on his, she knew something was wrong. Something was terribly, horribly wrong.

"The baby?' she choked out, "Rick...please...no."

He hook his head, because he couldn't get the words past his throat, and as if they were one being they both burst into tears. Their shared grief over the loss of a child who had not yet even had a chance to draw breath was physically palpable in the room. She had only been pregnant for ten weeks, but they had both been excited beyond measure, only to have their hopes dashed in an instant.

"I'm sorry Rick...I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry" she breathed into his chest as his own tears dripped into her hair, her breathing coming in shallow, ragged sobs as the waves of grief rolled over her, consuming her. "should have listened...I was so awful to you...It's all my fault...I'm so sorry..."

They clung to each other as if for dear life. This was the only thing in his life that Rick had never wanted to share in common with his beloved Kate, the crushing grief of losing a child, even one who had not yet been born, and now never would be. They hadn't even given her a name yet, didn't even have a body to bury. It wasn't fair.

"Shh...Kate...shh...it wasn't your fault...it was just an accident...I love you...shh..."

He knew how close to _"It was just a random wayward event"_ he was coming and stopped. She didn't need to be reminded of her mother's death. Not now.

He would not let her face it alone like he had. They would get through this like they had gotten through everything else that life had cruelly thrown at them...together.

He just wasn't sure how.


	3. Seeking Guidance

**Chapter Three**

**Seeking Guidance**

Jessica Bennet sat on a park bench overlooking the Lincoln Memorial contemplating the Gettysburg Address of all things when a man five years her senior slipped so quietly onto the bench next to her that she didn't even notice he was there. When he spoke she nearly jumped out of her skin.

"So _now_ you seek my counsel." He stated coldly, "You wanted to talk. So talk."

Richard Webb was still angry with her for staging her little mutiny four years ago, killing William Bracken against his _direct_ orders to the contrary. He had given John Bracken his _word_ that no punitive action would be taken against Billy other than sending him to prison, as long as he didn't interfere.

It had taken some fast talking and more than a few threats (including charges of treason) to keep the man from going off on a vendetta of his own. Jessica didn't have a fucking clue what she nearly unleashed on their shared family with that stunt. Her attempt to frame Lockwood's associate, Tom Jackson, had fooled no one in the halls of power, Bracken just didn't have any political friends left and whatever blackmail information he had died with him.

With his near bottomless resources, John Bracken could have done a lot of damage. Billy was a rank amateur in the dirty tricks department compared to his father. "Victor Charles" had taught both John and himself more about fighting dirty in the shadows than either of them had ever wanted to learn back in the bad old days in Vietnam.

He had only put Jessica's name forward to head Project Archangel to keep her out trouble. She was on a much shorter leash than he had ever been, and would continue to be until she learned some damned good judgment. If it wasn't for the fact that she was actually Johanna Beckett, Kate Beckett's mother he would have sanctioned her...personally.

His anger dissipated somewhat when she told him about Kate's car accident and losing her baby. Martha hadn't called for several days and now he knew why. He would never fault her for putting Richard first, not after what he had done to her for over forty years.

He had had his ear to the ground for direct threats against his son and daughter in law, especially with John Bracken as a potential threat, (he had been the one to refer former Spetsnaz Major Sergei Ivanov to Richard's car service) but was completely blindsided by a simple traffic accident. He knew both himself and Jessica still had at least this much in common.

Almost without conscious thought, he slid his hand across the space between them on the bench and covered hers with it. She flipped her hand and gripped his loosely. A shared moment between two exiled parents, grieving for their children who didn't know they existed and a grandchild who would never be.

Their issues with each other would be settled another day.

"I want to go to her, Richard, but after all this time, I'm not sure how." Jessica whispered, "What if I don't know how to _be_ a mother anymore? What if I do more harm than good?" Her eyes shined with barely restrained tears.

"Jessica, I have been asking myself this same question for over forty five years." Rick replied sadly. "I wish I had an answer for you."

Webb bowed his head for a moment and contemplated that first, disastrous phone conversation with Martha, how absolutely incensed she had been, and with good reason. He had deserved every stinging word of her rebuke. He could spend all of his remaining years trying, but would never be able to say or do enough to set right what he had done.

"Two suggestions." He said quietly after a long pause, "First, don't do it over the phone."

Jessica took this in for a moment then replied "And the second?"

"Go back to your natural hair color." He said with a mischievous wink "You look too much like an older version of Gina, her publisher and from what Martha tells me, she isn't terribly fond of her."

* * *

**2:00 PM  
The following day**

Kate had been released from the hospital at eleven o'clock that morning, but when they got to the front door she had a mild panic attack and refused to take a step closer to the exit to the street. Rick hadn't seen that wild fear in her eyes since the Lee Travis sniper case (one of the last cases he had worked on with the 12th Precinct before taking charge of the New York Field Office) she had locked herself in their bedroom with a bottle of scotch and her old backup piece shortly after the second fatality and it had taken half the night for him to convince her to come out.

He had gotten Dr. Burke to make a house call, who suggested giving her something constructive to do to help keep herself focused, so at his urging, she had spent the rest of that week "consulting" for the NYPD, analyzing the paper dolls the sniper had left behind. In the end she had broken the case wide open by discovering that the dolls were predictive, providing a clue to the next target.

Because of Kate's diligence and hard work, they had been able to take Lee Travis alive. He was now in the occupational therapy wing of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center's new facility getting the help he so desperately needed. Even so, it had taken him nearly a week to gently coax Kate out of the loft. Rick had a feeling he was in for a similar situation, so he requested a month's sabbatical. Which the FBI was all too happy to grant under the circumstances.

When the attending called in a psych consult, she was diagnosed with acute agoraphobia. The psychologist had observed that it was likely caused by the accident and would most likely fade in time, once the shock and trauma from her ordeal had eased. He also suggested they take the elevator directly to the parking garage and prescribed a mild anti-anxiety pill, to help take the edge off during the drive home, which she had stubbornly refused to take. Fully intending to face this fear head on and beat it.

As a result, while Sergei drove them home, she spent nearly the entire twenty minute ride to the loft curled up in the back seat next to him, her face buried in his chest nearly paralyzed with uncontrollable fear. He held her tight, stroking his fingers through her hair, rubbing circles on her back, in a vain attempt to soothe her, all the while silently shedding tears into her hair at the unfairness of it all. Wondering when the universe would stop tormenting his beloved Kate and let her live in peace.

Even the solid, inscrutable former Spetsnaz Major Sergei Ivanov was moved, a single tear coursing down his battle hardened cheek. Mrs. Rodgers' quiet sobs reminded him of his daughter Irina when she was little. As cold and hard as his exterior and his fearsome reputation were, he was a big Russian teddy bear in his heart and in the eyes of his little girl. He could not begin to imagine what suffering his passengers were going through, and he hoped never to find out.

* * *

**2:00 AM**

It had taken several hours for Kate to come back down from her anxiety attack during the car ride from the hospital to the loft. He wasn't sure what had her worked up more, Agoraphobia or simply being in a car in traffic so soon after the accident. Rick closed the drapes on the windows that faced the street and convinced her to finally take the mild anti-anxiety pill the on call therapist had prescribed. It, and the familiar surroundings of the home they shared together helped soothe her.

They had eaten a quiet dinner together for the first time in nearly a week, then a quiet evening on the couch in their pajamas watching a short lived show that Kate had discovered on the Science Channel called Firefly. Rick was hooked after the first episode. When she finally drifted off to sleep, somewhere near the end of the last episode, Rick carried her bridal style into the bedroom, where they now found themselves.

She cried quietly in her sleep, calling out for her mother, and it broke his heart to know that that cry for help would go unanswered.

* * *

_**Author's note: **_

_**Before anyone gets the urge to break out the torches and put together an angry mob because I have once again turned Kate Beckett into a shivering wreck needing Rodgers to protect her, I would like to point out that in 2005, I was in a very minor car wreck and suffered from bouts of claustrophobia of varying degrees of severity (with at least one full blown panic attack at my place of employment) for nearly a week, and to this day, still have something of an aversion to small enclosed spaces. (one of many reasons why I now drive a minivan) I referenced Killshot to support that Kate might have also been suffering from Agoraphobia on top of (or perhaps caused by) her PTSD.**_

_**Shutterbug5269**_


	4. Unexpected Homecoming

**Chapter Four**

**Unexpected Homecoming**

Kate Beckett snapped awake in the darkened bedroom she shared with her husband, the last vestiges of a nightmare of a crying infant eclipsed by the shriek of rending metal echoing in her mind. Her hand immediately searching for the warm comforting presence of her husband and finding him gone. She didn't hear the shower running, in fact she heard nothing at all. Her heart began pounding more heavily in her chest as the opening stages of an anxiety attack began to take hold of her.

"_He's gone. I'm all alone. He's leaving me!"_ all echoed in her sleep addled, anxiety ridden mind as she rose unsteadily to her feet and limped as quickly as she was able to the door, stumbling out into the study to find he wasn't there either. Her heartbeat climbed as she headed for the door leading to the living room. Her ankle throbbed as she burst through the door and saw him adjusting his backup piece on his belt and slipping his credentials into his jacket pocket. She barreled into him causing him to "oof"sharply.

"Please don't go...Please..." she was practically begging him, shaking in his arms.

"Hey...Kate...shh," Rick soothed as Kate practically fell apart in his arms, "It's okay...shh."

He hadn't seen her this utterly wrecked since the aftermath of her run in with Reginald Jacobs. He had hoped to never see this fragile, broken, completely devastated side to her again, it tore him apart in ways too painful to contemplate.

He pulled back a little from her embrace, took her left hand and caressed it. He ran his fingers softly over her wedding ring and touched his forehead to hers.

"Do you remember what the inscription on this says?" he whispered.

"A-always." she whispered, fighting back tears.

"That's right, love...always." he whispered soothingly, "No matter where I am, or where I go, or how far away, I have been and always shall be yours. You're stuck with me, okay?"

"But...but... the...the...baby...I..." she choked out, barely able to speak the words.

"That wasn't your fault, Kate, that wasn't anyone's fault, okay? It just happened." Rick told her quietly but firmly, pulling her back into his embrace, hoping that one day soon, she would believe him.

"But...but...if I'd taken the car service...like you'd wanted...like you practically begged me to...maybe..." Kate began, but trailed off into quiet choking sobs.

"Kate...love...don't." Rick pulled back and lifted her chin so he could see her eyes, "Please don't do this to yourself. I...love...you. Nothing is ever going to change that...nothing! Do you understand me?"

Kate nodded slowly then bowed her head back into his embrace as her sobbing slowly eased.

"I know it's hard to believe it right now, but we will get through this...together just like we got through everything else the 'verse has thrown at us." He whispered into her hair, not realizing he was parroting the show they had been watching together the night before.

"P-promise?" Kate whispered back in a voice so small, so much like Alexis' near the end that it hurt.

"I promise." He whispered into her hair.

He hoped that he conveyed more confidence than his wounded, grieving heart felt at the moment as he held her there in the middle of the living room, swaying softly to a rhythm only they could feel, as he held her weight off of her sprained ankle.

He needed this anchor to their shared existence every bit as much as she did. Grateful to the universe at least for this much. Her losing the baby was devastating enough. If he had lost her too, it would have destroyed him, this time leaving nothing in it's wake, not even ashes to rise from. She was his life now. His entire world.

His always.

When they had both found a place of relatively solid emotional ground, Rick eased Kate onto the couch and elevated her sprained ankle onto a pillow on the coffee table. He tucked a fleece throw across her lap and proceeded to make a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast. They ate in an uneasy, but companionable silence, constantly seeking and returning eye contact as if communicating by stolen glances alone.

It wasn't until they finished their meal and Rick was gathering the dishes to take back to the sink that Kate finally worked up the nerve to ask the question that had been on her mind since they first sat down to eat.

"I thought the higher ups okayed your sabbatical, why do you have to go in? "

Rick grinned a little for her benefit, almost as glad to see the little smile he received in return as he was to have neutral topic of conversation.

"I have one last bit of business to see to before that starts. I have to handle an entrance interview for a transfer from Sacramento, a CBI Agent named Teresa Lisbon. Ordinarily I'd let Avery handle it,but there are unusual circumstances."

"What kind of circumstances?" Kate asked. She remembered the circumstances surrounding Sydney Bristow's transfer and wondered if the circumstances were equally dire.

"Turns out she and her husband had a long history chasing down a serial killer, from what I hear the guy made 3XK look like a cub scout. They took him down but her husband was seriously injured in the process. A bullet snapped his femur, if I recall. Two other agents on their team were critically wounded in the shootout with his followers, one badly enough to take her out of law enforcement entirely."

Kate bowed her head for a moment, as she remembered the aftermath of her own shooting, how she had tried so hard to get back up to speed, only to fail the physical. Feeling a sudden kinship with Agent Grace Van Pelt, hoping that, like herself. she would find a way to land on her feet.

Before they got any further along in the discussion of her husband's itinerary, (which made her feel a lot better knowing it was only a quick run to the office and he would be back that afternoon) there was a knock on the door, followed by a key turning in the lock. When the door swung open, Martha breezed in, making a big entrance like the Broadway diva she was.

"Richard, darling! Good morning!" she practically gushed sweetness and good cheer as she hugged Rick and kissed his cheek, then moved right on to Kate, who was still sitting on the couch with her leg propped up, she bent neatly at the waist, draped an arm over Kate's shoulder and planted a kiss on her cheek.

"Kate! It is so good to see you up and around, dear one! Don't you move a muscle, I will take care of everything!" Kate slid Rick a long-suffering look and mouthed "kill me" as he headed for the door, grinning like a fool. This wasn't his wife's first experience with his mother's over amped version of "pampering." The last time was not long after she had come home from the hospital after her shooting. She had joked later on, that she made herself get better, if only to escape from the sugary sweet clutches of the diabolical Martha Rodgers.

Rick often wondered if that was intentional on his mother's part. Like she somehow knew how to get the desired result out of Kate while making it seem like it was her own idea. He wondered if she used the same approach with her students.

* * *

11:30 AM

Jessica Bennet walked out of the hair salon near midtown sporting dark brown hair for the first time in nearly sixteen years. It took her some time to get used to this this version of herself in the mirror in the Hotel suite bathroom. She had opted to go to the salon, because her hands were shaking too much to color her hair herself. She knew it was long overdue that she face this last part of her former life as Johanna Beckett. She hoped desperately that she was doing the right thing.

Webb told her that the longer she waited, the harder it was going to be. She saw the truth in what he said, he had stayed away for nearly forty three years. He was too late to have any hope of a meaningful relationship with his son now, and had just barely managed to rekindle his relationship with Martha.

Bracken's sick power games had stolen sixteen years of her life from her. Years she could have spent with her husband and her daughter. She intended to steal back this one last victory from the bastard who had broken them both. She only hoped she didn't do more damage in the process.

* * *

2:00 PM

When Kate heard the knock on the door while Martha was in the bathroom, Kate was certain that it was the delivery boy from her favorite Chinese restaurant with their late lunch order. Martha had insisted on running her a bath and she had fallen asleep on the couch shortly after. She had risen only an hour ago, and they both decided that Chinese food was just the ticket.

She grabbed her purse out of the coat closet, and headed for the door. When she opened it, she was stunned, her expression and body language went from a neutral to shocked, to completely freaked out in a matter of seconds as she dropped her purse and stumbled back from the door, like she had seen a ghost.

"Hello Katie." Johanna Beckett said to her daughter for the first time in nearly sixteen years.


	5. Panic Button

**Chapter Five**

**Panic Button**

_Kate grabbed her purse out of the coat closet, and headed for the door. When she opened it, she was stunned, her expression and body language went from a neutral to shocked, to completely freaked out in a matter of seconds as she dropped her purse and stumbled back from the door, like she had seen a ghost._

"_Hello Katie." Johanna Beckett said to her daughter for the first time in nearly sixteen years._

"You...but...you're dead! You can't be...you're dead..." Kate sputtered, her rational mind slipping into vapor lock as she backed away from the doorway, nearly stumbling over her own bare feet in the process.

Jessica stepped smoothly into the loft, allowing the door to swing closed behind her, trying to reach out to Kate, but she kept backing away until she was halfway into the living room. Kate was hyperventilating, all the while muttering incoherently.

"Breathe Katie...just breathe" she offered in a soft, concerned tone.

Internally Jessica was cursing herself for not giving Kate at least one more full day to recover from the shock of her accident and losing her baby before hitting her with another emotional blow. She realized too late that she should have waited for Kate's husband to be home or announced herself before coming up, rather than showing up bolt out of the blue, slipping past the doorman to surprise her when she was obviously alone and emotionally compromised.

_"Stupid. Stupid. Stupid."_ She thought to herself

Kate kept backing away from her, eyes wide with what could only be called panic. For every tentative step Jessica took in her direction she stumbled back three. She nearly tripped backwards over the corner of the sofa before turning and fleeing into an open door, slamming it closed behind her. She heard a lock snap before she heard another door open and close from farther away.

Before she could move to follow, she heard the unmistakable click of a safety being disengaged. She turned and saw an aging redheaded woman in an aqua pantsuit leveling a chrome plated Walther PPK at her head.

"Who the hell are you, and what have you done to Kate?" Martha Rodgers asked coldly, malice and venom dripping from every syllable.

Martha didn't know who this..._person_...was but she had sent her already emotionally fragile daughter in law fleeing in panic, which brought burning to life the angry, protective, mother bear buried deep within her psyche. Richard Webb had given her the gun and taught her how to use it, but she had never thought herself capable of pointing it at another human being until now. She knew without hesitation, if this woman so much as _twitched_ in the general direction of the master bedroom she would kill her where she stood.

Jessica knew in no uncertain terms who this woman was. Webb had sent her to purchase the weapon now being pointed at her head and told her who it was for. (He had needed a woman's opinion) She had a tactical Sig Sauer in her own purse and a folding combat knife in her pocket and knew that she could employ neither in this situation. Kate's mother or not, Webb wouldn't think twice about his swift reprisal and she knew without hesitation that Martha had no such restrictions. She found herself at a severe tactical disadvantage, with surrender and tactical withdrawal her only remaining options. She had come to far to walk away now.

"I'm her mother." She said, before letting her purse fall to the floor and dropping uncomfortably onto the couch.

Martha sank warily into the easy chair across from her, careful to keep the small pistol leveled at her head.

"You will forgive me if I find that hard to believe." she quipped coldly, "My son will be home soon, then we'll see if you are who you say you are."

Kate was curled up on the floor of the bedroom walk-in closet, with her back against the wall, her cell phone beside her on the floor, her arms around her knees, hugging them to her chest, unconsciously rocking herself slowly back and forth. She had hit the panic button Rick had had his FBI tech people add to her phone after the Reginald Jacobs incident and waited for him to respond.

"It can't be her...she's dead...it can't be her..." she repeated over and over in a hoarse whisper.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when the text message from Rick came.

_**Be there in twenty...hold tight...love you.**_

* * *

Two Hours Earlier

Patrick Jane sat in his wheelchair with a petulant look on his face the entire elevator ride up to the top floor of the New York City FBI Field Office. Considering that this was the third time since leaving Sacramento that she had given him this particular lecture he felt free to ignore her this time. He had no desire to cost Teresa this opportunity for advancement, on the contrary, he wanted nothing but the best for her, for both of them, now that Red John was dead and his followers were, but for a few stubborn holdouts, either dead or in prison.

The bastard had tried to shoot Lisbon. As he fought with him over the gun it had gone off and the bullet had cracked his left femur sending him to the floor, writhing in agony. She put a bullet between Red John's eyes which had set off a massive, firefight with his followers at his compound, ending with Rigsby and Van Pelt being shot up badly enough to put them both in the hospital for weeks.

Though the gun battle had only lasted a few minutes, it's repercussions were massive. Grace Van Pelt had been injured so badly that she was medically discharged from the CBI. Two of the four rounds in her chest had been meant for Rigsby, but she had jumped in front of him, not wanting his child to be an orphan.

Cho had arrived with the SAC PD SWAT team just seconds after the last shots had been fired. He had arrived too late to help the rest of the team, and the look in his eyes the last time Jane saw him spoke volumes. The guilt was eating him alive. He saw the same haunted look in Teresa's eyes when she thought he wasn't looking during his physical therapy sessions.

In the wake of the shootout, Teresa Lisbon took a paid leave of absence from the CBI and began looking for police work elsewhere. She needed a change of scenery. Someplace where she wouldn't have to be constantly reminded of all the losses she had suffered because she had allowed Red John to get the drop on her. He hoped to one day wipe that look from her visage.

They had eloped two weeks later. It was the only thing she had done in the last year she felt absolutely no guilt about. She kept her own name though, he had insisted. In his mind there could be only one _Mrs. Patrick Jane_, and she was dead and gone, along with his little girl.

He didn't want reminders of his past failures to taint the new life he and Teresa were trying to build for themselves here in New York any more than she did. It was why they were leaving all of that behind to come here. They needed a clean slate. A place to begin again.

His daydreaming was cut short as Lisbon cuffed him on the back of his head, having caught on to the fact that he had been tuning her lecture out.

"I'm not kidding, Jane, so help me if you embarrass me at this interview, You will be sleeping on the couch for the next week!"

"We will see about that." Jane said cryptically with that angelic half smile he knew she was both in love with and infuriated by...in equal measure. He so loved egging her on, she fell for it every time, and it was so much fun.

He would do his best to behave, but if this _Director Rodgers_ was a self important stuffed shirt like Bertram, however, all bets were off. He knew he wouldn't be able to help himself.

* * *

Richard Rodgers, Director of the FBI New York field office took his P226 out of his desk drawer and returned it to his holster where it belonged. He had felt naked without it in its accustomed place on his hip the entire drive in. He liked his Glock 30 just fine, but his Sig Sauer was an old friend. That he had left it behind was the surest sign of how distraught he had been the other day.

He tidied up his desk, looking wistfully at the sonogram he had left there the other day, it tugged at his heart, knowing that this was the only remaining evidence that the life that had once been growing in Kate had ever existed. He couldn't bear to look at it in it's small frame any longer, so he slipped it into the top drawer of his desk and slid it closed. When Kate was in a better frame of mind, he would add it to the family album. Until then, this was as good a place as any for it. A reminder that they lived in a cruel world where anything can happen. As if he needed another such reminder.

It had left an empty space on that corner of his desk, but he could live with it, as he took solace in the photo of Kate on his desk, and the one of Alexis next to it. A few minutes later the intercom buzzed letting him know that Teresa Lisbon and Patrick Jane had arrived. Were it just about Teresa Lisbon, he would have gladly left this meeting in Special Agent Avery's capable hands. She was an easy sell and he was willing to poach good talent wherever he could find it. There was just one issue with her that required his personal attention, namely her husband, Patrick Jane.

CBI Director Gale Bertram had sung his praises as an asset to the CBI just a little too highly for his taste. If he were that much of an asset to him he would have been trying to hold on to him, maybe downplay his skill-set a little. Instead, he had laid it on thick, how as a team, their solve rate was the best in the CBI.

Rick knew a whitewash when he saw one, and he wanted to look this man in the eye. Patrick Jane had a reasonably sized rap sheet of his own, if Teresa Lisbon was going to ask him to overlook that to get him a security clearance, then he wanted to get a measure of the man himself. He would not have left Kate's side at this critical time in her emotional recovery otherwise. Her desperate pleas for him not to leave this morning were still fresh in his ears. Every step out of the loft had been painful and guilt ridden. Every mile between their home and here in his Suburban had torn at his heart which beat only for her.

"Send them in Rebecca."

He said over the intercom, as he composed himself, schooling his features into the inscrutable mask he used in public as Rebecca, his secretary (who was still in college, studying criminal law, with an eye toward being a D.A.) showed them in.

"Let the games begin." he thought quietly to himself, his eyes subconsciously darting to Kate's picture on his desk a constant reminder why he needed to keep this meeting brief and on point.

* * *

An hour and a half later

Lisbon pushed Jane's wheelchair onto the elevator as quickly as she could, Jane had been entirely too well behaved during the meeting, answered every question asked of him, and kept his mouth shut otherwise. It had driven her insane, more so than his usual antics would have, but she was beating a hasty retreat with him before he suddenly reverted back to type...just in case.

When Director Rodgers shook first her hand and then Jane's to welcome them to the FBI (herself as an agent-in-training, and him as a consultant) she had done her best to hide her great wash of relief that Jane hadn't found a way to piss him off and screw this up. (He had a great talent for pissing people off, generally on purpose) As the elevator doors closed on them, she decided that she needed to know what had been going on in his head.

"Okay, who _**are**_ you, and what have you done with Patrick Jane?" she asked with a just a hint of a smirk at her little joke.

"What forever do you mean, love?" Jane replied with that pure-as-the-driven-snow look in his eye that just screamed to her that he was up to something. She hit the emergency stop button with an irritated glare aimed directly at him as the elevator jerked to a stop.

"Okay Jane...out with it." she snapped, in no mood for more of his word games, "How did Director Richard Rodgers earn more of your _**respect**_ in an hour and a half than you gave either Bertram or Wainwright in all the time you worked with me at the CBI?"

"Because he is real." Jane replied quietly, almost a hint of sadness in his voice. "Not one thing decorating his office was about him, politics, or his personal reputation. There were two pictures on his desk, the one in the black frame must be of his daughter, given it's pride of place, but the black frame suggests she died young, years ago, according to the dates in gold lettering on it. He studiously tried to avoid looking at it, but yet his eye was still drawn there in spite of himself, if only to avoid looking at the photo of the woman who is obviously his wife."

Jane took in a shuddering breath, his mind's eye had gone elsewhere for a moment, and Lisbon's expression began to soften. Jane often got this way when his thoughts strayed to his previous wife and his daughter, both deceased, murdered by Red John's minions under his orders. He calmed himself then continued.

"Given the empty space between the frames and the rest of that corner of his desk there is a picture frame missing, and given the proximity between the other child's photo and his wife's, I would wager that it was a photo of a recently deceased child, or perhaps a framed sonogram given the size of the empty space."

Lisbon's eyes again locked with his, but this time they were shimmering with barely restrained tears.

"I'm guessing he was only willing to leave his wife at home alone long enough to conduct this interview, file the paperwork and then get back to her as quickly as he could. Given the fact that, of the three times he smiled at us, none of them ever reached his eyes, I would wager that she is in a great deal of emotional trauma."

A single tear escaped from Teresa's Lisbon's right eye to run slowly down her cheek, in spite of herself.

"From the moment I looked him in the eye, I had no desire to drag this meeting out any longer than necessary. Any man who loves his family as much as he obviously does, can suffer what he has and can still get out of bed in the morning _deserves_ my respect, Teresa, and yours."

Lisbon brushed a gentle kiss to Jane's temple as she reset the elevator and it resumed its descent to the lobby. Jane produced a handkerchief seemingly from nowhere, which he handed to her to dab at her eyes to keep her mascara from running as she wheeled him out of the elevator and headed for the exit.

They only had a few days to spend together before Lisbon had to be on a train to Quantico, Virginia for her mandatory six week training cycle. (mostly boring procedural stuff Jane cared little for) and Jane would be checking into the rehab facility to rid himself of the damned wheelchair that was cramping his style.

He vowed that he would be walking under his own power to watch her receive her credentials in six weeks, to give her the standing ovation she deserves. He would finally be able to carry her bridal-style into whatever place they come to call home.

She would struggle, squeal and yell at him to put her down, probably even smack him for it after, but it would be so worth it. It was all the motivation he would ever need to get himself back on his feet.

Rick had just finished the requisite paperwork, both to accept Teresa Lisbon's request for transfer into the FBI, his acceptance of Patrick Jane as an accredited consultant and the requisite forms to begin the full background check on them both prior to granting them both the security clearances necessary to function in Federal law enforcement and the waiver he needed to overlook Jane's previous criminal record. He would not be the first felon to "consult" for the FBI but he was certainly less of a security risk than some he had heard of.

He had just finished the "paperwork" (nearly everything was paperless now) affixed his digital signature to it and tapped "send" on the computer's touch screen when his cell phone began vibrating wildly. He would recognize the ringtone anywhere, and it dumped a lead weight in the pit of his stomach, filling him with an all-consuming sense of dread.

_**Darkness imprisoning me  
All that I see  
Absolute horror  
I cannot live  
I cannot die  
Trapped in myself  
Body my holding cell**_

_**Landmine has taken my sight**_  
_**Taken my speech**_  
_**Taken my hearing**_  
_**Taken my arms**_  
_**Taken my legs**_  
_**Taken my soul**_  
_**Left me with life in hell**_

He had had Avery program the panic button onto Kate's phone after she had been attacked by Reginald Jacobs in case she had another panic attack like ones she'd had back then. Told her to use it in case she had a major anxiety attack and couldn't trust herself to speak. She had used it only once before since then, during the sniper case. He shot her out a text message and ran for the elevator.

_**Be there in twenty...hold tight...love you.**_

* * *

When Rodgers burst into the loft he was struck dumb by the tableau, his easygoing, live and let live mother holding a small .380 automatic on a woman sitting on the couch. But for the gun pointed at the woman's head, they could have been having afternoon tea. He had no idea where she could have gotten it, as neither himself nor Kate _owned_ a Walther PPK or anything chrome plated. As an FBI agent he wasn't fond of the "shaken not stirred" types he had to deal with from the CIA over the years.

Most of the serious operators he knew carried either 9mm or .40 caliber. In his limited experience, the PPK tended to be carried as a backup piece by female agents as it was small enough to keep in a purse or clutch.

As he moved past them on his way to their bedroom, he gave the woman a warning glare, then turned toward his mother as he kicked the woman's purse closer to his mother's chair..

"If she makes an aggressive move, mother, put her down, but center mass is a better target."

Martha adjusted her aim about a foot lower as he raked his eyes over the older woman sitting on his couch.

"If you have harmed a hair on Kate's head..." he said, trailing off as she seemed to get the idea.

"That was never my intent." Jessica replied.

As he got closer to the door, he turned and addressed his mother again.

"Mother, I ..." He began

"Go help her, kiddo, I can manage." Martha replied, and he unlocked the door to the study pulling the door closed behind him.

As he passed through the study and entered their bedroom, he saw the dim light from her cell phone coming from under the door of the walk in closet and tapped lightly on the thin door with his fingertips, he didn't want to startle her.

"Kate? It's me...I'm here...everything is gonna be okay." he whispered quietly

When he slowly swung the closet door open she practically launched herself into his arms. When she explained shakily the events of the last two hours he began to get a clearer picture of what was going on. He was still angered that Kate had been reduced to this state for the second time in less than forty eight hours, though.

He gently helped Kate into bed and got her to take one of the sedatives that Dr. Burke had prescribed with a glass of water, then sat on the bed with her until it took effect and she slipped into what he hoped would be a quiet, dreamless sleep. He ran a hand through her hair and lightly caressed her face. The worried lines began to fade as her face relaxed, and her muscles went slack, He stayed there and let her cling loosely to him until he was certain she was all the way out, determined to be there when she woke this time.

First, however he had a "guest" to see to.

He carefully disentangled himself from his wife and tucked herlovingly into the covers before slipping quietly into the office for his cell phone and fingerprint kit. Time to find out once and for all who the woman who had shown up at their home was. He was going to get to the bottom of this.

If this was some sick game by one of William Bracken's political cronies to get even with him, then there was going to be hell to pay. He felt rage beginning to build in his heart. Cold, unfeeling blistering rage.

'_For her sake_,' he thought darkly to himself, '_she had better actually be Johanna Beckett, otherwise they will be finding her broken body in the Hudson River, and I will be going hunting.'_


	6. Interrogation

**Chapter Six**

**Interrogation**

Rick slid a last longing look at Kate, sleeping soundly in their bed. He had slipped her the stronger sleeping pill that Dr. Burke had prescribed for her instead of the lighter one she thought he had given her. (glad for once that they were the same color and size) He knew she would be angry with him later when he confessed this transgression. He would tell her and accept her angry glare gladly, because they didn't keep secrets like that from each other anymore. She hadn't slept well the night before and she needed her rest, especially after this afternoon.

It was also best that she wasn't awake while he dealt with the woman in the next room. Martha had sent him a text to inform him that she had claimed to be Kate's mother earlier. He would see about that before he would let her anywhere _near_ Kate again. If she didn't like it, she could sit in one of his holding cells in the federal building while he did his digging. He could have this woman held there for up to forty eight hours without charging her. Plenty of time to check her DNA and fingerprints to see what popped.

As a former police officer, Kate's DNA was in the system already, but he could always resort to her hairbrush or her blood work from the hospital if it came to that. He would _not_ see her get hurt or allow this woman, whomever she was to get her hopes up only to crush her later when the tests came back negative.

_If they come back negative._ A small voice in the back of his mind reminded him. The small part of him that was still Richard Castle. The tiny piece of himself that still wanted to hear her story, wanted to believe, to have faith in the universe.

A voice he very rarely paid even the slightest attention to anymore.

The universe he had once invested so much faith in had shattered his heart, crushed his spirit and dashed his hopes and dreams one time too many for him to _ever_ have blind faith in it again. He would be _damned_ if he would allow it to do to Kate what it had done to him, not while he had anything to say about it. The woman he loved more than life itself had suffered enough.

Rick schooled his features as walked back toward the door leading to the living room, taking a few calming breaths to release the tension in his face and his body language before walking out into the living room and closing the door behind him. He nodded to his mother, who finally put the small pistol back into her her purse, slid back into the easy chair for the first time in nearly two hours to pur herself a glass of wine to settle her nerves. Content to let her son take it from here, almost relieved at not having to take somebody's life tonight.

"Is she all right?" the woman sitting on the couch asked, a concerned expression on her face. Rick knew how to read people, always had and her expression seemed genuine, but he would need more than a feeling before he would trust the veracity of this woman's story.

"I gave her something to help her sleep, she'll be out most of the night, which will give us a chance to have a chat." Rick replied, playing along with her for the moment.

He set the fingerprint kit onto the coffee table and slid it toward her.

"I think you know how this works." he said to her, indicating the print kit.

When she was finished applying her prints to the card and was busy cleaning her fingertips with a paper towel, Rick fished out his cell phone and took an image of the thumb print on the card, sending it to the office along with a text message to Avery to run it through NCIC and every other database he could think of and to send a lab tech to his loft to collect the DNA swab he was about to take next.

Only after she complied with everything he asked of her, did he slide into the chair his mother had vacated, making sure his Sig Sauer in its quick draw holster was on prominent display.

"Okay, _"Johanna"_ he said brusquely, emphasizing the name to indicate he was not yet prepared to believe her quite yet, "let's hear your story."

"Where would you like me to begin?" Jessica asked, her eyes drawn to the door he had come out of, where Katie was, a look of genuine longing on her face.

"In my experience," Rick replied, "it is best to start from the beginning."

"It's a long story," Jessica asked, "do you think I could have a glass of that wine?"

* * *

A man known only as Hawk sat in a matte finish late model Mercedes S-class across the street from the Rodgers loft. He had been a company asset once upon a time, (long enough for his full name to have long ago disappeared from any known public record) but had left the CIA in the mid eighties. He had managed to insinuate himself into the criminal element in Boston for over a decade before returning to Washington DC for reasons of his own.

He didn't usually operate in New York City, preferring to remain in the nation's capital he called home, but he was taking this on as a favor for an old friend. He was one of the few people outside of Project Archangel that Webb trusted implicitly. Like himself he had a shadowy past, but a sense of honor.

He had been asked to keep an eye on Jessica Bennet while she attempted to reconnect with her family. He wasn't to interfere unless she was in actual danger, just make sure that Webb's son didn't kill her. He checked the action on his .357 magnum Colt Python, slipped his wrap around dark sunglasses over his eyes, then settled in to wait for her to come out.

"We're both getting far too old for this shit, Webb." he said out loud to himself as he settled into the driver's seat.

* * *

One hour later

By the time Jessica finished telling her story, (along with two glasses of red wine) her prints had come back, inexplicably with two names attached to them. The first was for a State Department senior security specialist named Jessica Bennet. A name that had no official record prior to 1999 and no credit history before 2003. Rick had worked in the FBI long enough to be aware that "State Department" was a popular cover for the CIA and the NSA to use and cover identities were as common there as vodka martinis. The State Department credentials he had retrieved from her purse confirmed that part of her story at least.

The second direct match to her prints went father back than that, to a dead lawyer named Johanna Beckett, Kate's mother. He was not yet satisfied with those results, however, as he was well aware that records can be faked, fingerprint records can be switched out. There had been a body on record in the death of Johanna Beckett, and either the records from that body were faked, or this woman was not whom she claimed to be.

"Your State Department credentials check out, Ms. Bennet, but I am not yet prepared to believe you are Kate's mother yet."

"I see," Jessica replied, "what will it take to convince you that I am who I say I am?"

"I sent the swab sample you gave me, along with a hair sample from Kate's hairbrush to my forensics people." Rick stated, "It'll take a few days for the results to come back and I am asking you to stay away from Kate and her father until that time."

"And when they do?" Jessica asked, a hopeful expression on her face.

"_If_ they do" Rick replied, "then the decision about what to do next is up to Kate."

Rick handed Jessica her purse back and herded her toward the front door after calling down to the doorman and asking him to call her a cab. She was gratified to see how much Rick actually loved her daughter. Knowing that the the DNA test would come back positive, a few days didn't seem like all that long to wait.

"One more thing," Rick said, before his voice dropped to a whisper so low and cold that it nearly chilled her blood, "if the DNA doesn't check out, and you come anywhere near my wife or her family, I _will_ hunt you down and kill you."

She believed him, and knowing Richard Webb like she did, no one would ever tie the crime to his son.

After Rick closed the front door and locked it, he watched her departure on the security feed, before calling down to Eduardo, the doorman, to make certain she had not only left the building, but that he had personally put her in a cab. When he was sure that she was gone, he poured himself two fingers of bourbon swallowed it down and allowed himself to relax before he bid Martha a good night, changed for bed and slid into the covers with Kate.

Even in her sleeping pill induced sleep, she instinctively responded to his presence, her body molding itself to his. He planted a kiss on her temple and soon slipped into slumber. One way or the other, this whole mess will be sorted out soon.

In the meantime, he had bought Kate three days to come to terms with what had happened today, she would be more herself once the last vestiges of the pregnancy hormones had run their course. Or at least he hoped so After which she will be in a much better frame of mind to handle whatever was to come.

As he slipped slowly into sleep next to his wife, he almost found himself hoping that that the DNA test would be positive. Wanted more than anything for Kate to have back what that rat bastard Bracken had taken from her all those years ago.

It would be a poetic victory over the man who had taken so much from them both.


	7. Family

**Chapter Seven  
****Family**

Martha Rodgers paced back and forth in front of the bed in the guest room. By mutual agreement, she was staying at the loft in the guest room Rick kept aside for her in case she ever needed it. She knew that her son was taking too much upon himself. After recovering from his shock in the hospital when Kate was unconscious, he had begun bottling everything up. He was trying to be Kate's rock, be everything she might need, but he was doing so at the expense of his own broken heart and his own need to heal. Something had to give, and she was afraid of what it would do to him when the guilt and remorse became too much.

She had sent Richard Webb an image of the woman she had held at gunpoint earlier in the evening, a photo taken with her cell phone as she poured herself a glass of wine. Before Rick had arrived to answer Kate's desperate plea for help, the woman had dropped Webb's name and then had studiously left it out of the account she laid out for her son.

It didn't take a genius to deduce that that piece of information had been meant for her ears alone. A reference she had every intention of checking personally. She also needed to give Richard Webb a piece of her mind for not warning her what was coming. For keeping this secret from them all of these years.

She jumped when her phone vibrated to find a text message from Webb, which read.

_**The DNA test Richard is running will come back positive  
**__**Jessica Bennet is, in fact Johanna Beckett.**_

Martha was more than a little shocked that he would respond so quickly, as if he had been expecting this message, had anticipated this question. She sent a reply asking him how he was so sure.

_**I had a similar test run nearly a decade ago  
**__**when she came to me for protection.**_

Martha's last message was short and to the point.

_**We need to talk.**_

Again, his response came quickly, as if he had anticipated this as well.

_**I'll be in New York for a few days,  
**__**I'll send a car for you in the morning.**_

Martha could practically taste the resignation in that last message, as if he had been dreading this circumstance, this conversation for several years. Jessica's circumstances, seemed to mirror his own on so many levels that it must be difficult for him to process. She could tell by the discomfort in her tone when she had mentioned him that there was some sort of tension between the two of them.

As angry as she had been that he had left her and disappeared for over forty years, since they reconnected she felt the sense of regret he had carried all this time for what he had done, how empty his life had been. It was why she had given him a second chance, even if he wasn't ready to face their son.

There was more to this story than could be told over the phone, or in a few brief text messages in the middle of the night. She had to know the whole story if she was going to be able to help Kate reconcile with the mother she thought she had lost. Help Jim reconnect with the wife he thought he'd buried on that cold January day so many years ago. She had to try, because like it or not Jessica Bennet was actually Johanna Beckett, Kate's mother, which made her family.

Her family had suffered too much heartbreak to allow the chance to finally get _something_ back from the universe to slip away. She was no longer content to be the passive guardian of her family's broken pieces, it was time for the matriarch of the Rodgers clan to suck it up, as the young people say, and take an active hand to begin putting them back together.

* * *

The next morning

Kate slowly, groggily reentered consciousness to see sunlight streaming through the gap in the curtains. She vaguely recalled some kind of issue at the front door, but it was a hazy indistinct blur. She clearly remembered hitting the panic button on her phone. She distinctly recalled Rick's return text, followed shortly thereafter by his strong arms wrapping around her and putting her to bed.

She knows she must have taken a sleeping pill, or Rick had given her one. She clearly must have had a panic attack when their delivery order came, it was the only thing that made sense to her with the few facts she currently had at hand.

She hated taking pills, hated the fact that this time she actually _needed_ them simply to be able to function. She felt both mortified and ashamed that she was completely incapable of facing this demon down and beating it herself through willpower alone the way she _wanted_ to. The way she had conquered her fear of the dark as a child.

But this...it was far too much, she felt overwhelmed, like a cloud of impenetrable darkness had settled over her like a heavy blanket and she was powerless to stop it from blotting out the light at the end of the tunnel that was her life. She felt like all of her strength had failed her, like her legs were kicked out from under her and she couldn't find her balance, couldn't seem to get past this irrational fear, bordering on terror...merely of going outside.

She had tried to do it herself after she was discharged from the hospital, only to be left a quivering, sobbing terrified wreck in Rick's arms the entire drive home, and for much of that night. Not until Rick pleaded with her, literally got down _on his knees_ next to the couch where she was curled up with tears in hie eyes and _begged_ her to take the anti-anxiety pill had she finally relented.

She shivered slightly, having felt a momentary chill deep in her bones, so she rolled over in bed to seek out her husband's comforting presence, to find him fully dressed casually, sitting on the edge of the bed. She snuggled into him as best she could, grateful for the warmth of his touch, happy that he wasn't going anywhere today. She needed him far too much right now.

The very idea of Rick being alone out there somewhere...outside...beyond her reach, someplace she was currently terrified to go, made her feel an intense wave of both abject terror and crushing guilt. Like she was failing him somehow with her weakness. She knew that he loved her, that he would never leave her, and that it broke his heart to see her this way. She wanted to get better for him, if not for herself, wanted to be the strong, proud, fierce warrior woman he had fallen in love with, the woman he had married, the woman he deserved. Not this shivering, simpering agoraphobic shell of herself that she had become.

She just didn't know how.

* * *

A short time later...

Martha Rodgers swept through the loft, her expression all bright and and breezy sunshine, stopping briefly at Rick and Kate's bedroom to hug them both and plant a kiss on each of their cheeks, before she was off for the day. Departing in spite of the dumbfounded expressions on their faces as she muttered "...and miles to go before I sleep..." aloud at them for dramatic effect.

It was everything her son had come to expect from "Hurricane Martha," a role she had perfected in the decade or more since Alexis had been taken from them, a truly bravura performance worthy of a Tony Award.

The light airy facade quickly disappeared from her face the moment the elevator doors closed on her like the final curtain call of a show, revealing once again the visage of the unwavering, fiercely protective mother grizzly bear that had been unleashed upon an unsuspecting Jessica Bennet.

Richard Webb knew more than he was telling and this time she was going to get the full story out of him.

The car was waiting for her precisely on time, pulling up to the door of the loft mere moments before the young doorman pulled open the apartment complex's front exit. Richard Webb's young bodyguard swiftly exited the vehicle to get the door for her with crisp military efficiency. Martha wondered absentmindedly, and not for the first time, if the young, athletic woman had been assigned to him by the CIA, or if she was one of his "strays."

She knew from recent experience that Richard Webb tended to collect people that had helped him in one way or another. (many to their detriment) As it was not in his nature to simply use people and then throw them away, he invariably took them under his wing and looked after them. She wasn't sure whether it was out of guilt, misplaced paternal instinct or if it had been the loss of his entire family when he was a young Navy Lieutenant, but it was one of the many reasons she had let him back into her life.

Richard Alexander Webb was a good and honest man who cared deeply about the people who worked with and for him, a rarity in the political circles he now navigated in Washington DC. Where he wielded great power simply because he knew where enough bodies were buried. (he had _personally_ buried many of them) He could just be truly exasperating at times, especially when he played his cards a little too close to his vest, much like their son. They were a lot more alike than he gave himself credit for.

When she arrived at his New York residence, which had taken about an hour in the back of the blacked out car. (the concession required by his security detail to forgo the hood, as she hated what it did to her hair) She wasn't quite sure where she was, but if she had to hazard a guess, was somewhere in the Southern Catskills, as it was landlocked and bore no resemblance to anyplace on Long Island. Martha was barely inside, accepting Richard's greeting kiss on the cheek when she asked the inevitable question.

"Richard, exactly how much do you know about Kate's mother?"

Richard Webb sighed quietly in resignation and motioned her to a couch in the reading room. When they were both seated cradling cups of steaming coffee, he told her everything that Jessica had told him, along with what he had been able to piece together from various additional sources. Including Irina Derevko, whom he had visited in her isolation cell shortly after Jessica came to be in his employ. Through her alone, he likely knew more about Jessica Bennet than Jessica herself did.

When he was finished, the story of Johanna Beckett's transformation from lawyer and loving mother to highly trained assassin and covert agent was unvarnished and complete. Martha had tears running down her cheeks, ruining her mascara.

Tears that had begun at the mere mention of their granddaughter. That Jessica could not only not bring herself to harm Alexis, but had actively tried to to save her life at the risk of her own, however unsuccessfully, had reduced Martha Rodgers from lingering resentment of the woman to silent tears.

She knew now that she would have her work cut out for her, if she was going to add another set of broken pieces into the family she cared so deeply for. When the DNA test that her son was running came back in two days time, the true work of picking up the shattered pieces of her broken family would truly begin.

It would truly be her life's work, the most important thing she would ever do. Even if it was her last act before she fretted her final hour on the stage and shuffled off this mortal coil.

* * *

_**Okay...**_

_**It would seem that this tale is likely going to take more that the ten chapters I had originally set as the limit for this story. My muse has fully sunk her claws into my brain, and cold Russian woman that she is has thus far refused to relinquish her icy grip on my soul. **_

_**Do try to contain your disappointment.**_

_**As always, Nerwen Aldarion, I blame you.**_

_**:P**_

_**Mark**_


	8. Confirmation

**Chapter Eight  
****Confirmation**

It had been a rough couple of days in the Rodgers loft. Martha had called to tell them that there were issues at her acting school that needed her direct attention so she would be out for a couple of days, but would keep her phone handy if they needed anything. Rick thought this was just as well because he knew that Kate didn't like to be crowded when she was hurting and his mother could sometimes be a bit much at the best of times. It had taken him most of that first morning to coax her out of bed, into the shower and dressed as it was.

He had seen this level of depression in her before, most notably after she had failed the physical fitness requirements for the NYPD and couldn't be a cop anymore. He knew from painful experience that the longer it took to get her up out of bed and into some semblance of a normal routine, the harder it would be for her, so he got her up, got her dressed and managed to coax her to the exercise room downstairs which was thankfully empty that first Wednesday morning. Since she was petrified at the very thought of going outside, the treadmill would be better than nothing.

It became readily apparent the first time he tried to broach the subject, that she remembered very little of what happened that afternoon when Jessica Bennet had come to call, or had somehow blocked most of it out. Most likely due to the shock of seeing someone whom she had believed had been dead for over a decade, and the sleeping pill he had given her.

When he asked Dr. Burke about that while she was in the bathtub that night, he told him not to be concerned, that it was a normal response to the trauma of that first meeting. He cautioned Rick that if this Bennet woman really was her mother, to handle the introductions a little more carefully next time. Maybe get Kate to take an anti anxiety pill beforehand.

When the results of the DNA test were delivered via courier to the loft, Rick had been called down to the lobby to sign for the report. He brought it back upstairs and read the report while Kate was in the shower. Jessica Bennet had indeed been telling the truth. The DNA test showed a 99.44% match. Johanna Beckett was indeed alive, and had been in their living room two days ago.

The part of him that was still Richard Castle rejoiced, his faith in the universe finally vindicated. The rest of him, however that had seen what chasing her mother's murder case had done to her, everything his wife had sacrificed over the last fifteen years because of this, how she had suffered, quietly seethed. The thought that someone who purported to love her, her own mother no less, could leave her suffering in darkness like that for nearly her entire adult life made him nearly boil over with rage.

When Kate took the mild sleeping pill and curled up to take a nap, he told her he was going downstairs to work out some more. He reassured her that he wouldn't leave the building without telling her first and that he was only a cell phone call away if she needed him. He sat with her until she fell asleep and then meticulously wrapped his fingers on the way back down to the exercise room.

After the first swing at the heavy bag, he surrendered any pretense of self control and gave in fully to his rage. He threw everything he had into every swing, pummeling the bag with his fists, pounding on it till his knuckles began to bleed. All sense of time lost as he drowned in his grief and rage.

* * *

Kate woke after an hour and a half of fitful sleep to find the loft empty, bearing no sign that Rick had returned. A solid knot of fear grew in the pit of her stomach as she hurriedly searched every room in the loft for him. Fear slipped quietly into panic as she slipped on her ballet flats grabbed her keys and headed for the one last place she could look. Praying to God that he was still there...

* * *

Rick didn't know when his angry grunts had turned into sobs, or his knees finally buckled and he slid down the bag to the floor, or when Kate had found her way to his side and took him in her arms to give what comfort she could to her noble fallen knight as the last of his walls crumbled and he completely broke down.

For the first time since the night he told her that their baby was gone, they cried in each others arms and truly mourned together for what cruel fate had taken from them. They wept until there were no tears left, before they hauled each other up and unsteadily made their way to the elevator back to their floor.

When Rick explained to her what had pushed him over the edge, she was puzzled.

"What woman?" she asked, "I don't remember any woman."

"According to mother," Rick replied, "she was what sent you into a tailspin that night."

"Why would this woman set off a panic attack?" Kate asked, not certain if she wanted an answer.

Rick's reply made her dizzy, almost to the point of causing her to swoon.

"Because the woman you saw three nights ago was Johanna Beckett, your mother."

"That can't possibly be true..." Kate stammered, "they...showed us a body...how can you be so sure..."

"Kate," Rick replied, rubbing the pad of his thumb across the knuckles of her right hand, "I'm sure because after I gave you the sleeping pill and helped you to bed, I spoke to her at length, and got her to submit a DNA sample for testing. I didn't want to believe her without some proof, I was sure she had to be an imposter sent by one of Bracken's friends for some twisted sort of revenge, that your mom would never do something so awful to you."

Kate could see the honest, naked, pain in his eyes as he spoke,could feel how deeply he loved her that he would go to such lengths to spare her further heartbreak. Before she could respond, he put a finger to her lips and continued.

"When the DNA test came back positive today, it made me so...angry...that she would do this to you all those years, leave you wallowing in your grief, while your father tried to drink his pain away. I wanted to burn that report and tell her to go to hell, but I couldn't make that decision for you, or for your dad, it isn't my place."

"You mean she..." Kate began, but Rick cut her short.

"Yes Kate she wants to see you, she left a contact number for me to call when the DNA test came back she wants to tell you why she did what she did...she wants to explain."

"My mom...oh God, Rick...my mom is...alive?"

Kate wrapped her arms around Rick's neck and burst into tears.

* * *

Jessica Bennet sat in her small, functional, modest apartment in lower Manhattan. She had stayed home today, knowing that the DNA test that Richard Webb's son had ordered would be coming back today. Though she knew what the results of the test would be, she was anxious because she wasn't sure what his reaction would be.

From his piercing stare when she told the edited version of her story, (his security clearance was insufficient to be informed about Project Archangel) and his parting shot to her, threatening her death if she was an imposter, she knew he was fiercely protective of her. Just the type of man she would have wanted for her only daughter.

Part of her was afraid he would condemn her for the years she had allowed Kate and Jim to believe she was dead, hiding in the shadows and doing nothing while they suffered all of those years. Send her packing, but she knew he was too good a man for that. Her daughter would not have tolerated him, much less fallen in love with and married him otherwise.

Her introspection was cut off by her cell phone ringing. When she picked it up, it revealed a text message from Richard Rodgers' cell phone:

_**5:00 PM, Tuesday  
****Rodgers loft  
****Announce yourself to  
****the doorman this time  
****Don't screw this up.**_

Jessica Bennet knew that the time for half measures was long since past. If Katie was willing to give her this chance to back in her life she would have to commit.

Ready or not, it was time to be a mother again.


	9. Family Reunion

**Chapter Nine  
****Family Reunion**

Rick and Kate spent the balance of the weekend preparing the loft for the second arrival of Jessica Bennet. In between her manic bursts of cleaning, sometimes rearranging the living room multiple times, Rick could tell that Kate was worrying about something, and given how much she had been chewing on her lower lip he could tell it was really eating at her. He wanted to help her, but he knew she wouldn't open up to him until she was ready, just like she always did. She was on the verge of tears when she finally came to him.

"Have I wasted my life?" She asked. "I spent nearly thirteen years obsessing over a murder that never happened. I feel like such a fool."

"Kate...no..." Rick breathed, pulling her into a tight embrace. "You had no way of knowing at the time, if the parts of her story she told me were accurate even _**she**_ didn't know who she was back then."

"But I gave up almost _**everything**_ to chase this," Kate replied, tears spilling unbidden down her cheeks and her breathing began to hitch, "I...I _**killed**_ people chasing it...I almost _**died**_ chasing it...and...it was all...it was all...for nothing..._**nothing**_!"

Kate broke down sobbing quietly in his arms as Rick eased them both down onto the couch, pulled her into his lap and rocked her gently, running his fingers softly through her hair, not knowing how to fix this, how to make it better, so he did the only thing he could do. He just held her.

The rest would be figured out when Johanna Beckett made her appearance on Tuesday. He knew in his heart, that this wasn't going to be a very happy reunion...for any of them. Any meaningful relationship with Kate's mother would simply have to be built carefully over time.

* * *

4:30 PM Tuesday afternoon.

Jessica Bennet (aka Johanna Beckett) was due to arrive shortly and Kate was quietly freaking out. Rick was doing his best trying to calm her but was making little progress on that front, so he finally resorted to bringing her the anti-anxiety pill, which for once, she took without complaint.

Jim was supposed to be arriving soon as well and Kate was worried about his reaction to Jessica, concerned that being face to face with her might set off a relapse. She had his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor on speed dial just in case.

Martha was in the guest bathroom putting on her makeup. When she was finished she slipped the Walther PPK out of her purse and checked the action, before engaging the safety and returning it to her purse. Though Richard Webb, himself had (tentatively) vouched that Jessica was not a danger to them, something about the woman simply rubbed her the wrong way.

She could _**never**_ have done what Jessica did. She knew through painful experience how it felt to be the one left behind. She could not even entertain the notion of inflicting that pain on another human being, much less the people she loved the most. It quite honestly insulted all of her sensibilities as a mother.

She did not envy the woman, not one tiny little bit, she had a lot of fences to mend. Richard Webb was certainly not done mending all of his either, but she _**did**_ give him points for trying.

Her final verdict on Jessica Bennet would hang on how she handled herself in the next few hours. Even the best case scenario she could come up with did not predict this ending well. There was too much emotion involved, too many unknown variables.

_'The woman had better be able to handle initial rejection with at least a certain amount of grace,' _Martha mused to herself_, 'or this was going to end very badly...for everybody.'_

* * *

Fifteen minutes later

Jessica Bennet had just entered the lobby when she saw a familiar face talking with the doorman and a particularly large gentleman of obvious Russian origin. It would seem that Agent Rodgers wasn't taking any chances on her slipping past the doorman like she did last time.

"Not one of my better impulse decisions in light of how Katie reacted." She thought to herself, not realizing she had whispered it out loud.

Jim Beckett turned at the sound of her voice and blanched at the sight of her, like he had seen a ghost.

"J-Johanna?" He breathed, recognizing her immediately. "Rick told me you...were alive, but I...I couldn't bring myself to believe...not after so much time.."

"Jim..." She whispered, putting out her hand, which he took in both of his, "you look much better than the last time I saw you."

"What the hell happened to you, Jo?" Jim asked, pain and more than a little anger evident in his tone and expression, though he didn't release her hand from his, almost afraid she would disappear again.

"Jim...I..." she began, fighting back tears she had sworn she wasn't going to cry, "I know you want...no you _**need**_...answers...and you _deserve_ them, but...Katie needs to hear this too, and this is very painful for me, and I'm not sure I have it in me to do this more than once."

This seemed to calm Jim a little and he schooled his features as if in a courtroom "Okay Jo, until we get upstairs then."

"I promise, Jim," she said quietly, "soon you'll know everything, for better or for worse, and so will Katie and Rick."

Jessica was not looking forward to this discussion at all, as it was going to dredge things up she would rather keep buried, but she knew it was necessary if she wanted any kind of relationship with her daughter.

She knew parts of it were going to hit her husband, Rick where he lives, but that secret had been gnawing away at her conscience for over a decade, he deserved to know the truth about what happened to Alexis. She hoped he didn't ask too many questions, because she had just promised Jim she would be completely honest, and she couldn't back out on that promise now. Some of the secrets she kept were not necessarily hers to reveal. But she would cross that bridge when she got to it.

"Miss Bennet." Said the mountain of a man in a thick Muskovite accent, with not a trace of malice in his tone. "You are early. I call upstairs to tell them that you are here. You will behave this time..be kulʹturnyy da?"

"Da, Sergei, ya budu khorosho, ne volnuytesʹ." (Yes Sergei, I will be good, do not worry) Jessica replied in fluent unaccented Russian.

"I see you and Mr. Beckett have met." he stated to Jessica. but whispered to Jim, "Is okay, da? " he asked Jim.

"Everything is fine, Sergei, thank you." Jim replied

They were saved from further awkward conversation by the arrival of the elevator, which Sergei motioned them toward.

"Bennet?" Jim asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Jessica Bennet is the name I've been going by the last sixteen years. It's a long story."

"I'm sure." He replied as the elevator doors slid shut.

When he was sure that the elevator was completely away, Sergei stepped out of earshot of Eduardo the doorman, pulled out his cell phone, and dialed Richard Webb's private line.

"Richard, it's Sergei. She's here and she already met with her husband." He said in clean, unaccented English.

"Thank you, Sergei, old friend. Keep me apprised of any developments, Hawk is on station nearby if things get out of hand and you need to pull her out, but I don't expect much more than some heated family drama."

"Of course, my old friend, if you are back in New York next week, my granddaughter has a violin recital. She is very good...even by Russian standards, though I do admit to some bias on the matter."

"Thank you, Sergei, if my duties permit I would love to."

* * *

A short time later

Jessica had known this was going to be hard. The beginning of her story had been the hardest, as she had very little memory of how this story started, so many of her memories of those early days surrounding her transformation were simply...gone. Kate seemed to soften a little and so had Jim to learn that this was something that had been _**done**_to herand not a path she had chosen.

She could see the mild horror in her daughter's eyes when she recounted the murders she had committed while she was another person entirely, how she and Rick had found certain names familiar, Hal Lockwood and Dick Coonan, being chief among them. The split second when Rick and Katie turned and looked at each other when those names were mentioned spoke volumes.

Martha was watching the whole time, as if she already knew the story and was merely assessing her delivery and performance as if she were critiquing one of her acting students. Webb had obviously filled her in, then swore her to secrecy. At least the bulky purse she kept the Walther PPK in was nowhere in sight.

It was when she got to the part about Alexis, the sad, sick little girl who cried out her mommy. The one she had been ordered to kill, but couldn't. The one who had changed everything, made her see that what she was doing was wrong, that it wasn't her, that she noticed she had truly gotten Rick's attention.

_'He really didn't know' _she thought to herself.

The completely stricken look on his face when she got to the part of the story where she had arrived at the hospital too late, when she saw them leaving the hospital, and she knew that Alexis was going to die that night. That haunted, crestfallen, broken look on his face tore her heart in two.

Even through his tears, she could tell that he was grateful that she hadn't gone through with it, couldn't go through with it, that she had at least _**tried**_ to protect his daughter when he couldn't. She saw Kate grab his hand and squeeze it lovingly in a show of support, tears in her own eyes, and a little anger too for what had been done to the man she loved.

She paused her story long enough to watch the two of them together, tears in both of their eyes, their hands clutched together, foreheads touching, as if each was drawing strength from the other, simply through physical contact. Kate's barely audible whispers of comfort to her husband as he openly mourned the daughter who had obviously been his entire world. A world William Bracken had shattered thoughtlessly for his own selfish ends without a care for the damage it would cause. Little knowing he was forging the instruments of his own doom.

It was Rick's turn to comfort Kate, when she got to the meeting with Roy Montgomery.

"I'd always assumed he was being blackmailed by whomever was behind this," Kate said, tears in her eyes, her former mentor redeemed a little in her eyes, "that he was secretly helping them stay hidden to keep me safe, but he was doing it for you? He knew?"

"Yes, Katie, he knew," Jessica replied. "but I swore him to secrecy, begged him to help keep you safe. Told him how to approach getting you to stop by allowing you to fail, letting you see for yourself how futile the search was. He didn't tell me he knew it was Senator Bracken though. Obviously that was the information Roy used to keep him at bay."

When she got to the part where she had dragged Jim out of the bar and set him on the road to rehab she truly caught Jim's attention

"That was real?" Jim asked, his voice barely above a whisper, "I'd always assumed it was a hallucination, a whiskey induced dream..." He trailed off, unable to continue.

"I knew I couldn't go back yet...not without putting you both in grave danger." she told him gently, "I knew Katie was going to need you too much to let you self destruct, and I hoped to come back one day when all of this was set right. I'm sorry it took me so long."

It wasn't until she got to the end of her tale that she was met with hostility, when she had broken Senator Bracken out of prison and killed him. Most people had been all too willing to believe that he had been killed by one of his former mercenaries. Kate practically seethed over what she had done.

"Mother...how could you do that?" Kate hissed at her, her eyes alight with fury, "I wanted justice...I wanted him to pay for all of the harm he had caused...not vengeance...not a bullet in the head. I wanted him to stand trial for what he did, to be convicted, to spend the rest of his life in prison, knowing he had been beaten. That he had lost."

"Katie, I couldn't accept that," Jessica replied, "he might have found a way to wriggle out of it, that his father, with all of his money and connections would get him out and then you would never be safe. He was a small, petty, vindictive man, look at what he did to me. He would have never left you in peace, and I wanted this to be over."

"Mother, what happened to you?" Kate hissed at her, "You used to believe in the law, in justice..not revenge."

"I'm sorry, Katie, but I'm just not that person, I don't believe in blind justice anymore."

"Except Richard Webb had that _**handled**_. As a matter of fact he had expressly ordered you _**not**_ to harm William Bracken. He and Bracken's father had a deal, and _**you**_ broke it." Martha finally stated angrily. "What you did very nearly backfired! If it hadn't been for Richard's quick thinking, what you did could have killed us all!"

"It's easy to say that now, knowing what was going on, but Rick's father played his cards too close to the vest. A few of us thought he was merely being sentimental, not finishing Bracken because of his friendship with his father. That he wasn't thinking clearly, so a few of us decided to deal with it for him, so he wouldn't have his godson's blood on his hands. We thought we were doing it for him."

"My what?" Rick sputtered for a moment, "Richard Webb is my _**what**_?"

It took Jessica a moment to realize what she had just blurted out without meaning to.

Rick looked angrily at his mother and said, "You knew?"

"Yes, Richard, of course I knew, I slept with him." Martha said, "I was angry with him when he first contacted me when he first enlisted you to help him, he had disappeared for forty three years, but I wanted him to come to you himself. This is unfortunate."

"Unfortunate that I know the truth after all these years?" Rick said icily.

"No, Richard, unfortunate that you had to find out this way, when he isn't here to defend himself. In spite of everything, your father is a good man, he wants to connect with you, but he just isn't sure how without hurting you even more."

"Did he know about Alexis, mother?" Rick asked,

"Not at the time," she whispered hoarsely "he found out later, shortly after you and Kate were blown up in your Suburban. He came to see you in the hospital, that was when he told me about it."

"And Jessica's involvement?" Rick asked harshly.

"This was the first I'd heard of it, Richard, I doubt even your father knew." Martha responded.

"He didn't." Jessica interjected. "I was too ashamed of my involvement in that to tell anyone about it until today...I'm sorry I hurt you, but you deserved to know the truth. When she looked up at me and said "Mommy" it just broke my heart, she was such a beautiful child and I'm so sorry."

"I think that has been enough for one day, for everybody" Kate said shakily, "_mother_ I think it's time for you to go for now."

The word _"mother"_ seemed foreign to her lips, she needed time to process everything, to spend time alone with Rick to help him process everything that had been thrown at him. He was trying valiantly to hide it, but what he had learned about the true manner of Alexis death was eating at him, she could tell.

"I'm sorry Katie," Jessica said, "I want to have a place in your life, in Jim's life. I'll be available whenever you need me, for whatever you need. Please don't hate me." She was practically begging.

"I want that too, mother, and I don't hate you. but I have a lot to process. It's going to take some time." Kate replied.

"Okay, Katie, I understand." she said, bowing her head sadly. She pulled a State Department business card from her pocket and gave it to her. "All of my numbers are on it. My personal cell, email and home number are written on the back. If you need anything, anything at all, even if it's to scream obscenities at me in the middle of the night, don't hesitate to call me."

"Can we go someplace for coffee?" Jim asked her, "Katie may need some more time, but I'm not ready to let go of you just yet."

"I'd like that." Jessica replied, and the two of them headed toward the door.

As soon as the two of them were gone, Martha headed upstairs, sensing that Rick and Kate needed some time alone. As soon as she closed the door to her guest room, she sent Richard Webb a text.

_**Richard knows**_

* * *

Rick and Kate changed for bed, neither were much in the mood for conversation, they just wanted to curl up in bed together and be there for each other. They both finished their evening routines quickly and with little fanfare before climbing into bed and settling into each others arms. The stress and revelations of that evening left them both drained beyond words. In the comfort of their warm, safe cocoon they both relaxed and quickly drifted into a deep peaceful sleep.

They would talk in the morning.


	10. Out Of The Shadows

**Chapter Ten  
****Out of the Shadows**

Rodgers Loft  
4:30 AM

Kate Beckett Rodgers woke to a gentle shuddering on the mattress, slowly coming to consciousness, she felt it before she heard it. Soft, gentle sobbing coming from Rick's side of the bed. His back was turned to her, in a fetal position and he had managed to kick himself free of the blankets without waking her. Now that she was fully awake, though she could see his shoulders convulsing with each sob that came from deep within him.

He was crying in his sleep.

Crying for a daughter who had been gone these many years, who he now knew had not just died, but had been _taken_ from him. Her life _stolen_, not by cruel fate, or an uncaring universe, but by a twisted, deranged, power hungry man. Done for no other reason than to hurt and distract a father he had not met until recently.

His quiet choking sobs broke her heart.

That Rick still mourned Alexis this deeply, still loved his only daughter this strongly even this long after her passing...no, her murder...was a testament to how deep the well of his love went, that when he loved he loved completely with all of his heart. Why he didn't rush into relationships or fall in love easily.

When he said always...he meant _forever_. No limits, no boundaries, no return...forever. No matter how much pain and heartbreak it caused him along the way. It still stunned her to this day, that he loved her that same way, loved her so much it actually hurt him deeply to see her in pain.

Even though she could never condone her actions, she understood now why her mother had wanted Bracken dead so badly. Wanted that cruel, deranged powerful, sadistic bastard to know not only that he had lost, but that _she_ had beaten him at his own sick game Wanted to be the last thing he saw before the dark cloak of death enveloped him on his way to hell.

She hoped he _burned_ there for all eternity for what he had done to the man she loved.

She moved closer to him, covered his shuddering form once more with the comforter and snuggled in close to offer what comfort she could. As he did when she needed him, so would she do now. They were partners, lovers, husband and wife. She loved him with everything she had, and he needed her now more than ever.

"Why would somebody want to murder my sweet little baby...why?" he muttered in his sleep

Kate didn't have an answer for him, even if he had been awake to hear it. After nearly a decade on the force and almost five years in homicide, she knew that _why_ was something that rarely made sense to anyone, and Bracken had taken his secrets to the grave. So she did the only thing she could do.

She wrapped him even tighter in her embrace, ran her fingers through his hair and whispered soothing nonsense words in his ear until his breathing evened out and she could feel him slipping into a more restful sleep, one she hoped would be free of the painful dreams that troubled him so.

* * *

Richard Webb's office  
June, 2011

"_Rick, you promised me that if I didn't interfere that nothing would happen to Billy. You gave me your word." John Bracken said after he had barged into his Manhattan office without an appointment. _

_How he had managed to get this far into a CIA facility without his knowledge was beyond him. Obviously his son was not the only person who had friends in the right places._

"_John, I did not sanction this. In fact my orders to the contrary were quite clear. It's an internal disciplinary matter I will deal with in house." He replied._

"_I'm not sure I can believe that Rick. I know that Billy had Mike killed, and went after your son. I saw the reports, did some outside digging. He is still my son, though, and I trusted you to keep him safe." John replied._

"_What are you saying John?" Richard Webb asked, point blank._

"_If you don't deal with the people who took my son from police custody and murdered him, then I will, and I won't be responsible for the collateral damage." He replied coldly._

_Richard Webb rose from his seat, having heard quite enough._

"_John, do you remember what I said about harming a hair on my son's or his new family's heads?" His own tone was becoming quiet, cold and dangerous. John Bracken could see him becoming _"Nemesis" before his very eyes_. A cold, blank stare he did not feel comfortable having leveled on him._

_He really did become another person when he was on mission, or protecting his own. He remembered what Rick had done to the six men who had raped and murdered his sister all those years ago. The killings that had gotten him noticed by the NSA and CIA._

"_If I so much as hear an inkling that you are going to rogue and anything happens to to _anyone_ in my son's circle, you _will_ be dealing with me. And by me, I mean Nemesis." He spoke in a harsh whisper, _

"_I will hunt you down no matter where you run, find you no matter where you hide, track you to the ends of the earth if I have to and then I will make _"Charlie"_ look like a Goddamn Boy Scout troop before I'm done with you. Do I make myself clear?" _

_The silence that descended over the room was deafening and the temperature felt like it had dropped 10 degrees._

_John swallowed once having realized he had pushed his threat just one step too far. He knew what lengths Rick Webb was willing to go to when it came to family or people he had taken under his protection. Seen it with his own eyes both before and after Vietnam. In country he had been one of those people, and back in the world, so had Billy._

_As quickly as it had disappeared from his countenance, the more human side of his nature once again asserted itself. With every passing year, John Bracken became less sure which was real and which was the facade. When Rick spoke again it was with quiet resignation._

"_I loved Billy almost as much as you did, John. But he crossed a line when he had my _granddaughter_ killed." Webb slid a framed picture across his desk within John's field of view, _

"_Her name was Alexis. She was an eight year old sick little girl, John, and he did it just to keep me from finding out about his dirty little secret. So don't you dare ask me to feel sorry for him, or blackmail me into killing people on his behalf. By all accounts he brought this on himself." _

* * *

Present Day

Richard Webb sat in his office, holding the same picture of Alexis in its black frame that he had shown John Bracken four years before. Contemplating the two word text message that Martha had sent him the night before. _**Rick Knows**_

He wasn't sure how he was going to explain to his son where he had been all these years, any more than he had been when he had had to explain to Martha. How would he connect with a son who hadn't known anything about him growing up, had only met twice before, and both times after either sending him into danger, or rescuing him from it.

How to be a father to a son who really didn't need one anymore.

He sensed a conversation not unlike the one that Jessica had been forced to have last night looming in his future, and he had a hell of a lot more ground to cover than she did. He would also have a much more hostile room than she did. By all accounts, Kate did not think highly of him, and he really couldn't blame her.

Unlike Johanna Beckett, in 1968 he had been presented with a choice, and he _chose_ to walk away, to disappear into the shadows and allow them to consume him for over forty years. Granted, the choice had been more like disappear or spend the rest of his life in Attica, but he wasn't sure if his son would choose to see it that way.

And he still wasn't certain he had made the right one.

* * *

Rodgers Loft  
11:00 AM

Dr. Burke had at least 10 minutes left in his house call session with Kate, when, suddenly the door to the office they shared just off from their bedroom opened and the man beckoned him to come inside and join them. As he eased himself onto the couch next to Kate, who seemed like she could use the reassurance, and she slid in closer to him for comfort Dr. Burke cleared his throat.

"Agent Rodgers," Carter Burke began, but Rick interrupted,

"Please, call me Rick."

"Okay.. Rick." Dr. Burke resumed, seemingly unfazed by the interruption, "Kate and I have been discussing treatment options for her symptoms of Agoraphobia and have decided on an option that only requires a minimum of drug therapy."

Rick was not surprised, Kate had an aversion to taking pills other than the occasional ibuprofen or Tylenol, and then only when the pain was too great for her to grunt through it. Often times hampering her own recovery from injuries. He had seen that from her recovery from her shooting, and less recently during her recovery from her beating in the alley a few years ago.

"Knowing my wife as I do this doesn't surprise me, what have you come up with?"

"We have settled on a treatment plan called "immersion therapy," which entails exposing her to her fear gradually, in small increments over time. Not so much to cure her of the fear, but to allow her to experience her in controlled but gradually increasing increments over time. This will allow her to adjust to her fear and to learn coping mechanisms to both accept it and with luck move past it."

"Rather like pulling a bandage off slowly?" Rick asked.

"Precisely." Dr. Burke replied, "From what she has told me in session, she tried the "ripping it off quickly" approach and it ended badly. This was not surprising, given she had refused to take the anti anxiety medication she was prescribed."

"What do I need to do?" Rick asked.

"Essentially for this to work, requires someone she trusts implicitly, and she has emphatically stated that this person is you." Burke replied. "You need to start small, but gradually expose her to outdoor, but controlled environments for incrementally longer periods of time. I'm told you did something similar with her after the sniper case?"

Rick nodded "Her symptoms had been a little less severe then, but yeah, I grasp the basics."

"Good," Dr. Burke replied, "just set reasonable goals, be patient, perhaps have an end goal in mind, something to work toward and you should be fine."

"Rick turned toward Kate and asked, "Isn't the launch of Naked Heat coming in three months?"

Kate nodded nervously, she had sent the finished manuscript to Gina at Black Pawn the day before the accident. Rick took both of her hands in his and continued,

"Would you like to have your ruggedly handsome muse/husband be your arm candy on the red carpet?"

Suddenly Kate looked up at him, her eyes wide, "But aren't you afraid of being recognized?" she said in a hushed voice.

"It would be a small price to pay to help you get your independence back, to get your life back."

Kate buried herself in his strong arms. She wanted that too, she wanted desperately to be herself again. Rick looked over Kate's head to Dr. Burke and said,

"Send me a fax telling me what, when and how to do this and we'll get started tomorrow."

"I'll have my assistant fax that over as soon as I get back to the office." Dr Burke replied on his way out the door.

"Kate, this won't be easy you know, remember what you were like after the Travis case?"

Kate nodded, but looked up into his eyes, for the first time in days, he saw hope, strength and determination shining in her green eyes, a fire that had been missing from her all this time.

"But just like then, you'll be with me every step of the way, right?" she asked., already knowing what his answer would be. He did not disappoint.

"Always," Rick replied, "in good times and bad times, in sickness and in health, right?"

"Till death do us part." Kate replied.

Tomorrow the real work would begin.


	11. Coming Out of the Dark

**Chapter Eleven  
****Coming Out of the Dark**

* * *

_Why be afraid if I'm not alone?__  
__Though life is never easy the rest is unknown__  
__Up to now for me it's been hands against stone__  
__Spent each and every moment__  
__Searching for what to believe_

_Coming out of the dark, I finally see the light now__  
__It's shinning on me__  
__Coming out of the dark, I know the love that saved me__  
__You're sharing with me_

_Starting again is part of the plan__  
__And I'll be so much stronger holding your hand__  
__Step by step I'll make it through I know I can__  
__It may not make it easier but I have felt you__  
__Near all the way_

_Coming out of the dark, I finally see the light now__  
__It's shinning on me__  
__Coming out of the dark, I know the love that saved me__  
__You're sharing with me_

Coming Out of the Dark: Gloria Estefan

* * *

8:00 AM

When she woke up, Kate felt well rested. They had both worked through some very painful memories and experiences the past few days. Both of them had come face to face with demons from their pasts they both thought had long been laid to rest and had gotten through it all together. This morning would be the first step on the road to recovery, not just for herself, but for both of them.

Kate had risen from the gentle embrace of the most restful, non-drug induced sleep she had had since this whole ordeal began. Her sprained ankle was mostly healed and she walked with only a slightly noticeable limp as she headed into the bathroom to take a shower, gradually shedding her clothing as she went.

She stepped into the shower and felt it's hot spray soothe her muscles and her spirit. With the water beating down on her aching body as she washed her long chestnut hair, she didn't hear Rick enter the bathroom, didn't see him shed his own clothes, had no inkling he was there until she felt his gentle hands wrap around her waist.

She leaned back into his embrace, reveling in the feel of his naked body against hers for the first time since the accident. The feel of his arousal pressed against her. His hands began to softly, carefully caress the planes and curves of her body, she felt his lips brush tender kisses into the curve between her neck and shoulder eliciting from her a soft moan of pleasure.

She needed this. She hadn't realized how much she needed him to not be afraid to touch her the way he used to before this happened. For the first time in over a week, she was beginning to feel a sense of completion as she turned in his embrace, pressing her breasts into his chest.

She looked into his deep blue eyes, saw his desire for her was undiminished, rose up onto her toes and pressed gentle kisses to his lips, letting him know without words that she needed this just as much as he did. She gave him the words too. Words she hadn't realized how badly she wanted to speak.

"Please, Rick...make love to me..."

He picked her up off her feet, she wrapped her legs around his waist as he pressed her into the shower wall and made sweet gentle love to his wife for the first time in over a week.

"I love you." they both said in unison. They were back in synch again at long last.

* * *

Two Hours Later

Rick and Kate stood at the bottom of the stairwell leading to the rooftop access door. Rick chose this place, because they had both been to the rooftop garden in better days. Kate herself had tended the roses there many times. She had written a good portion of her first book there. It was the safest place he could think of to begin.

He looked into Kate's beautiful green eyes and could see the beginnings of fear there. The hesitation in her stance, the slight tremble in her hands, he knew panic was not far behind. He put out his hand and beckoned her to come closer. She stood frozen to the spot for a moment, but then reached out a trembling hand to take his.

"Kate...do you trust me?" he asked quietly.

"Y-yes." Kate whispered. A single tear broke loose and ran slowly down her cheek.

"Then come with me, Kate and face your fear. I will be right here behind you the whole time. Take this first step with me, and one step at a time we will conquer it together."

For the first time in nearly a week and a half she stepped into the sunlight, felt the cool breeze upon her face and in her hair. She stood there, transfixed for five minutes before the fear took hold and she shrank back into the doorway, shaking like a leaf. Rick took her in his arms, closed the door and led her down the stairs back toward the elevator whispering soothing words into her hair.

She had taken the first step back into her life. It was enough for now.

* * *

Over the course of the next few days, Kate managed to take her first halting steps out into the rooftop garden. Every day after that, she was able to remain outside for longer and longer. Her fear, though not gone by any means, was becoming a manageable, known quantity.

Over time, as she acclimated to her fear, she learned to control her breathing to settle her heart rate, allowing her keep that fear from becoming panic. Eventually her recovering self-confidence allowed her to walk out the front door of the building with Rick at her side for the very first time. Even if just to make one circuit around the block.

The day they had been able to eat lunch together at the small coffee shop around the corner, she felt like she had been set free. She couldn't wipe the bright beaming smile off her face if she tried. It brought tears of joy to Rick's eyes as they walked back into the loft, to see her smiling again.

His heart soared along with hers at every milestone, every victory.

* * *

They made plans with Lanie and the boys the following day to join them for lunch at Remy's. Kate's goal was still two months away, and her recovery was proceeding ahead of schedule. They both felt some celebrating was in order and she felt that it was important to show the boys that she was getting better. They had felt responsible for her accident, and she needed them to know that they hadn't been at fault any more than she had.

Though this time, she had insisted on taking the car service. Rick understood her reluctance to get behind the wheel, and figured he would tackle one issue at a time, she was nervous and jittery enough on the short drive to Remy's as it was. He held her hand the entire time, running his thumb in slow circles along her knuckles to soothe her and she settled by the time they arrived.

By the time the two of them entered Remy's, her tension had eased enough for the beaming smile to return to her face, but Rick could tell she was still a little anxious by the way she gripped his hand in hers under the table to keep it from shaking.

As they ate lunch with the boys and Lanie she was happy being a passive listener to the conversation, just happy to hear the banter between Ryan and Esposito, her boys, which was a balm to her soul in it's own way.

That was until her eyes drifted out the window to the street, just in time to see a car swerve around the corner going the wrong way at high speed and slam headlong into an oncoming car, to the screech of twisting metal and crackle of broken glass sending the street outside into absolute chaos, and Kate into absolute panic.

She struggled with Rick to get out of the booth to the point where he was forced to stand to avoid being shoved to the floor, only to have her throw herself into his arms and cling to him desperately shaking and whimpering plaintively. Ryan and Esposito looked at him, questions in their eyes.

"Go, guys, I've got this." Rick commanded, answering their unasked question. They were out the door before he finished the sentence, taking charge of the accident scene. Lanie paused for a moment, a look of quiet sympathy for her friend crossing her features before she too was out the door to triage the wounded until EMS arrived on site.

* * *

A man with a camera had appeared outside the window, drawn like a parasite to the accident scene. As he was assessing where to take pictures he looked in the window to see the hot (in more ways than one) new mystery writer fresh off her first bestseller having a meltdown inside the diner.

He knew she generally kept herself well out of the public eye accept to attend her book signings and publicity events and saw dollar signs. A photo of the usually publicity shy Katherine Beckett in such a compromised state with her even more reclusive husband and muse would fetch a pretty penny from The Ledger and several other scandal sheets. He practically salivated at the possibility.

He had swung around to take the shot and was busy focusing when a large hand descended upon his shoulder and mercilessly squeezed on a pressure point between his neck and shoulder making his hand go numb, and drop his camera, sending it swinging on the strap around his neck. Followed by a deep, menacing voice with a think Muskovite accent.

"Mrs. Rodgers not feel well. Bad time for...how you say...photo op. You go now, da?"

The sniveling little creep gulped once and was about to assert his first amendment rights, when the man turned his cold, steely ice blue eyes on him, and all that passed his lips was a small squeak.

"I not ask _nicely_ second time, little man, you go..._**now**_...da?"

The dangerous look in Sergei Emmetovich Ivanov's eyes belied his friendly, amiable tone, letting the man know that his continued presence would no longer be tolerated, so he turned and fled, his camera and his still useless right arm flopping along as he ran.

The paparazzi's flight attracted Javier Esposito's attention, giving Sergei the briefest of glances so he shrugged.

"In Soviet Russia, I would have killed him."

Javi smiled weakly at what he hoped had been an attempt at gallows humor and went back to managing the scene as Sergei once again took up his post next to the town car, waiting for his passengers to emerge.

* * *

Back inside Remy's, Rick was doing his best to steady Kate down. That accident outside could not have come at a worse time. She had already been shaken a little by the car ride down here, and he needed to help her get her bearings so she wouldn't turtle up as soon as he got her home. She had been doing so well up to now.

She was fighting it though. He could feel her struggling to regulate her breathing, fighting back against her fear for control of her mind and body as he held her to him, whispering soothing nonsense words.

"Shh, Kate, shh. It's all right, I'm right here, and you're safe. Breathe for me, love...just breathe Shh."

Slowly, but surely with the help of Rick's soothing ministrations she clawed her way back from the depths of her panic attack.

"That's my girl,_ fight_, I know you have it in you. I believe in you."

Her breathing began to even out, and the wild look in her eyes softened as the panic attack slowly subsided. Her hands still shook, and probably would until she got some rest, but otherwise she seemed to be settling down as she pulled away enough to look him in the eye before she finally spoke.

"I...I think...I may need...to take the anxiety pill...be-before we drive back."

Rick pulled her back into the shelter of his arms, proud of her for coming to the realization herself and whispered into her hair.

"That's fine love...that's perfectly all right."

She gave him a wan smile before she spoke again,

"Take me home, Rick."

He nodded, as he released her so she could walk out of Remy's under her own power with her head up and he was never more proud of his fierce warrior woman than he was at that moment. He could tell by her proud bearing as they walked out the door that, in spite of her fear, she was Kate Beckett again. She would face down this fear and kick its ass.

Once again, as if on eagle's wings, his heart soared.


	12. Because You Love Me

**Chapter Twelve  
****Because You Love me**

* * *

_"You were my strength when I was weak__  
__You were my voice when I couldn't speak__  
__You were my eyes when I couldn't see__  
__You saw the best there was in me__  
__Lifted me up when I couldn't reach__  
__You gave me faith 'coz you believed__  
__I'm everything I am__  
__Because you loved me"__  
_

Celine Dion: Because You Loved Me

* * *

Rick and Kate had been back in the loft for a little more than an hour when he heard a soft, tentative knock on the door. Rick had spent the bulk of that hour helping Kate get settled down from her scare in Remy's.

Though she had carried herself well once she had shaken off the worst of the panic attack's grip on her, she was still badly shaken. In spite of the anti anxiety pill she had taken, the ride back to the loft had not helped matters all that much. She had clung to him in a near death grip all the way home, though she had remained sitting up with her feet on the floorboard and her eyes open (albeit unfocused) this time, which was a marked improvement over their ride home from the hospital.

He had closed the blinds and the curtains as soon as they got home, and she was currently curled up on the couch in the living room wrapped in a blanket with the covers pulled up over her head. He could hear her doing her breathing exercises, interspersed with muttering calming words to herself. The combination seemed to be working for her. She was coping, which was an encouraging sign.

When he opened the door, Jim Beckett was on the other side with his hands in his pockets and a tentative expression on his face. Rick latched onto his arm and practically dragged him into the loft.

"Jim!" Rick whispered, relief evident in his tone, "God, am I relieved it's you!"

Jim Beckett did his best to give his son-in-law a reassuring smile. He felt a little sheepish showing up at their door unannounced, but when Johanna, (he will _never_ get used to her new name no matter how hard he tries, but thankfully she doesn't mind him using her given name in private) had gotten the call from one of her "sources" she all but pushed him out the door. She told him that she figured that he would be better received than she would under the circumstances.

Kate felt the cushion dip as Rick sat on the edge of the couch and brushed his hand along her exposed right ankle. She turned toward him so she no longer faced the back of the couch, and peeked out from under the blankets at him, feeling the compassion pour into her from his blue eyes. She _hated_ how isolated, how hollowed out and empty the anti-anxiety drugs made her feel only slightly less than she did the panic attacks. The drugs didn't take her fear away so much, as hide it behind an indistinct, chemically induced haze.

"Kate," Rick said softly, Jim was mildly surprised how quiet his voice was, "your father is here. He heard about what happened today and he came to look in on you."

"He didn't bring..._Jessica_...did he?" she asked in a voice so small and quiet it made Rick's heart clench in his chest, "I _want_ to love her but I'm just not ready to face her tonight."

"No Katie-bug...it's just me." Jim said quietly, resting a comforting hand on her shoulder, "Your mother figured you wouldn't want to be crowded. She sends her love though. I know you need time, so does she, but you need to rest, so I won't stay long, but your mother and I wanted you to know that both of us are around if you need us...for anything."

Jim leaned over, pulled the blanket back to see her face and softly kissed the top of her head. "Get some rest Katie, Rick will take care of you and everything will be better in the morning."

Rick knew he had to go back to work in a few days, and he hated the necessity of it. He would continue to work with Kate, help her work past her fear and once again walk in the sunlight. She had been doing so well until today, but he would give her some time to recover from this setback before they got started again.

He knew in his heart that she would not give up now. She had tasted freedom and he knew she wanted more. He had seen it in the set of her eyes back at Remy's when she had walked out to the car under her own power. She had only just begun to fight.

Though the incident at Remy's set her recovery back for a short time, it was only a couple of days before Kate was pushing to get back to it. Rick was glad to see she hadn't retreated back into herself as she had had a tendency to do early on in their partnership whenever she hit an emotional wall. That this one experience had not soured her to continuing to fight.

Dr. Burke had warned them both when they started, that setbacks were part of the process and to try not to be discouraged. He was glad that Kate had taken his advice to heart, no matter how tempting it was for her to turtle up, shut the entire world out, and stay in the warm soft cocoon of their house forever.

Deep inside, in the depths of her heart, she was still _Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD_, and the life of a frightened shut-in was simply not good enough for her. She wanted to be more than a hothouse flower never again to see the sun. She wanted her life back.

* * *

A few days later

Rick felt like crap for having to go back to work at this critical stage in Kate's recovery. She had moved past her setback at Remy's and now he felt like he was abandoning her to face her fear alone. He had promised to stay by her side, that he had her back in this and leaving her now felt like a betrayal. He simply didn't have any more personal days left in this quarter so he had no choice. He had to go back to work.

Kate could tell by the way Rick dragged himself through his morning routine, that he wasn't happy about having to go to work. About leaving her alone only a month before her goal, leaving her alone to do the heavy lifting herself. Her heart clenched in her chest to see the crestfallen look on his face as he walked toward the door. She didn't know what to do that would make him feel better. She would not have gotten nearly this far without his patience an steadfast devotion. She didn't see this as the act of betrayal or abandonment he saw it as, he had a job to do and she understood that.

If she could only find a way to get him to see that.

* * *

10:00 AM

Rick sat at his desk without much passion for his job. His first order of business had been to sign off on the paperwork for the cases that Avery had forwarded in his absence. After that he checked up on the progress of Teresa Lisbon in her fifth week of her six week training course and was gratified to learn that she was passing with flying colors. Interestingly enough, Patrick Jane had even managed to pass his background check, and was nearly finished with his physical therapy. He would have his consultant's credentials by the time he got on the train to Quantico, Virginia to see his wife receive hers. He always had been a good judge of talent. He looked forward to working with them both and he was sure they would make perfect addition to the team here.

He would probably feel a great deal better about it if his mind had not been wracked with guilt about being here in his office on the other side of Manhattan, when he would rather be at home helping Kate.

* * *

That same moment  
The Rodgers Loft

Kate wandered the loft worried about Rick's state of mind. Distracted as he was he would be in serious trouble if he had been in the field. She had to find a way to show him that she would be okay. She knew a simple phone call or text message would simply come off as a plea for help and only make him feel worse about doing his sworn duty.

Without conscious thought she found herself at the door to the rooftop garden. It was a test of her resolve. Her hands shook as she lowered them onto the door, his words echoing in her head.

"_I will be right here behind you the whole time."_

_"That's my girl,__ fight__, I know you have it in you. I believe in you."_

She pushed the door open and for the first time since this whole thing began stepped alone out into the sunlight. Her hands shook, but she made herself walk ten paces from the doorway, then turn to face it, forced her trembling hands to still, lifted her cell phone and took a photo of the open doorway, her shadow clearly visible on the decking. She sent it to him with a text message.

"_**I'm standing here because you believe in me"**_

She took in a deep breath and forced herself to walk slowly back to the door, her heart hammering in her chest. Part one of her strategy to make his day had begun. On her way back down the stairs to the elevator, she dialed a number on her cell phone from memory.

* * *

CIA Headquarters  
Langley, Virginia

Richard Webb sat in his office. He had just gotten off the phone with Martha, and had to agree she was indeed correct. It was well past time to screw on his courage and go face his son. He had fought Viet Cong Guerillas, chased down spies, terrorists, and assorted other evildoers in dark alleys and jungles on nearly every corner of the world, but he had never been so nervous as he was now at the thought of confronting his only son and his wife.

Jessica had been kind enough to keep him apprised of Kate's progress. He did not want to be the cause of a relapse in his daughter-in-law's condition. She and her husband, Jim it seemed had rekindled their relationship. To keep her cover intact, the two of them had had to play it off as a new relationship, but they seemed to prefer to stay outdoors, only appearing in public a few times. Oddly enough they had attracted paparazzi attention, much to his amusement, because of their daughter's new-found fame.

So far her cover identity as a security specialist for the State Department had remained intact, so he wasn't worried. What they did behind closed doors was their own affair. He was secretly happy for them both.

He hoped his reunion with with Richard would even go half as well.

* * *

**"****I'm standing here because you believe in me"**

When Rick had gotten Kate's text message and viewed the photo she had taken from the roof of the building, he was over the moon. Kate had actually stood alone on the rooftop, out in the sunlight. He wished he could have been there to see it. He swore to himself that he would have the image printed on the way home, so he could have it framed and hung up in his office. It didn't completely assuage his feelings of guilt for having left her to her own devices, when he had given his word to be by her side for all of it.

His reverie was broken when his office intercom buzzed. It was his assistant, Rebecca.

"Director Rodgers, the lobby security officer called, he said you should get downstairs, it's about your wife."

Rick snapped his head up, at the mention of his wife, he went into panic mode. _Had she pushed herself too hard and had a panic attack? Why the lobby? _He thought to himself, his penchant for the worst case scenario in full flower as he slipped his sidearm out of his desk and into its holster on his way out of his office to the elevator. When he finally reached the lobby and the doors opened he was out like a shot before. He stopped in his tracks, floored when he turned the corner.

Kate was standing in the middle of the lobby, wearing her sharpest professional outfit and her favorite four inch heeled boots. She looked magnificent, with her long chestnut hair framing her face and draped around her shoulders, the sunlight playing across her features. She had never looked so beautiful to him as she did at this moment.

Her hands shook almost imperceptibly, noticeable only to him. She had obviously keeping her composure by sheer willpower alone. He marveled at her strength, and was, as always, captivated by her beauty. He shook off his appraisal of his wife and staggered forward to take her into his arms and kissed her passionately.

God how he loved this woman.


	13. Face Your Fear

**Chapter Thirteen  
****Face Your Fear**

* * *

"_I must not fear.  
Fear is the mind-killer.  
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.  
I will face my fear.  
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.  
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.  
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.  
Only I will remain"_

Bene Gesserit litany against fear  
Frank Herbert: Dune

* * *

Richard Rodgers could tell by the nearly imperceptible way Kate's hands were shaking and the stiffness in her body language, that she wasn't quite ready to experience the twenty minute return trip across midtown Manhattan during lunch hour traffic just yet. (though her stubborn pride would never allow her to admit to such weakness in front of so many witnesses) He made a quick call to Sergei to let him know he was free for the afternoon, had the lobby guard issue her a visitor's badge and pressed the call button for the elevator.

When it arrived, he offered his arm, which she linked with her own, her face a mask of serenity, but with a hint of gratitude in her eyes. When the elevator doors closed on them, she let out a small sigh and slid heavily into his embrace, all traces of her calm and placid exterior vanished now that they were alone.

"That has to be one of the hardest things I have ever done." Kate whispered shakily, "I almost had Sergei turn around and take me back home...twice."

Rick combed his right hand through her hair, slipping a stray lock behind her ear, pressing a chaste protective kiss to the top of her head.

"God, Kate, I'm so proud of you," he whispered into her hair, "I felt absolutely lousy having to leave you alone, I promised to be with you every step of the way only to abandon..."

That was as far as he got in his self flagellation before Kate interjected,

"Rick, let me make one thing perfectly clear...you did not _abandon_ me...okay? You knew when took the sabbatical that you wouldn't be able to stay home with me forever. You were there for me when I _needed_ you to be, when the panic attacks were so bad that I couldn't take care of myself."

"After you left for work today, I could still feel you right there with me. Even when I stepped out onto the roof on my by myself, I wasn't really alone. I could hear your voice encouraging me, telling me that you believe in me. You gave me the strength I needed to face my fear and step back out into the sunlight."

She punctuated her last statement by turning into him, leaning forward onto her toes and kissing him hard on the lips. When they parted for air, both of them were breathing heavily and all traces of that train of thought were gone from Rick's mind.

"Would you like to get some lunch, Kate?" Rick asked when he could finally string full sentences together again, "I could ask Rebecca to order something for us before she goes to lunch with her fiance, if you like. She offers to do that a lot, but I usually go out myself."

"That would be perfect." Kate replied, "To be honest, I don't think I've ever met Rebecca."

True to his word, he asked Rebecca to call in an order to the same Chinese place they used to favor at the 12th Precinct. The tall, willowy redhead even offered Kate the ergonomic office chair from her own work station and refused to take no for an answer as she wheeled it into position beside his desk.

Kate was impressed with her kindness and attention to detail, though she could see iron and steel just behind her eyes, she obviously had spirit. She had even made an extra round trip to the lobby to retrieve their food before Rick shooed her out the door to meet with her own lunchtime companion, telling her she more than earned an extra hour for lunch. When she tried to beg off he made it a direct order.

Though Kate wasn't certain if Rick was consciously aware of it, Rebeeca's resemblance to Alexis was striking. The slender, athletic redhead appeared to be about the age his daughter would have been had she lived, and she would not be surprised to learn (given the almost paternal demeanor Rick slipped into when the young woman was present) that he had likely had run a full background check on the fiance...just to make sure she'd be all right. Rick took care of all of his people, to be sure, but Kate was certain that Rebecca pulled at his heartstrings in a way most others did not, and Kate loved him just a little bit more because of it.

She ended up staying the rest of the afternoon, watching him intently while he finished up his paperwork for the day. She had her tablet out and was busy making notes into it, but he could tell when her eyes would stray from the device to watch him intently when she thought he wasn't looking.

He had thought to crack a joke about how creepy it was for her to stare at him like that while he was working, (especially since he couldn't do anything about it) but he was so happy she was writing again that he decided to let it go. For the first time since they got married, he was happy to have her here in the office with him. It felt good to fall into their old banter and forget for at least a little while that their world had been turned upside down only a month ago.

* * *

Meanwhile

Richard Webb had appropriated the section chief's office in the New York City CIA facility 15 floors below street level, where he was currently washing his hands in the private bathroom. Sergei had informed him earlier that he had dropped Kate off at the NYC FBI field office and that Rick had told him that they both would be there till the end of business day.

He now knew where his son would be and how long he would be before he arrived home. Part of him had wanted to take the bull by the horns, like Martha wanted, and go straight to his office. As much as the audacity of that plan appealed to him, he rejected it out of hand, as it would look bad for both himself and his son. The Director of Operations for the CIA did not simply "drop in" to visit an FBI field office at the spur of the moment. It tended to raise a stir.

"You've faced down Vietcong guerillas,drug dealers, Irish terrorists, Arab extremists, and homegrown traitors of every stripe without so much as breathing hard, but you become an indecisive wreck when it comes to confronting your own son. Get a grip, squid." He muttered to his reflection in the mirror.

He decided some formality was in order, and called his assistant/bodyguard, on his way to get the appropriate uniform out of his suit carrier hung over the door.

"Margaret, call down for my car and change into your undress whites, it's well past time for me to take care of some unfinished family business."

* * *

Rick parked his FBI issue Suburban in the loft's parking garage, and killed the engine. Kate was none the worse for wear in the passenger seat having gained a measure of strength from her solo foray to the FBI Building. She wasn't yet one hundred percent, but she was obviously on the mend. She had even gotten a significant amount of writing done for Heat Rises. It would be a significantly different book than the one she had originally envisioned. Agent Rook would be playing a much more significant role in Nikki's self exploration than she had planned.

All and all she had had a very good day, and he meant to help her capitalize on the ground she had gained. The likelihood that they would be walking down the red carpet together for the launch of Naked Heat was looking better all around.

Just as Kate took his hand and stepped out of the heavily modified SUV, Rick received a text letting him know that there was an important looking visitor waiting for them in the lobby. He sent a return text to let Eduardo know that he would be down to greet him as soon as he accompanied Kate back to the loft. He put his phone away and with a steadying hand at the small of Kate's back, he walked with her into the elevator.

Kate shooed him back to the elevator as soon as she was in the door. Though she secretly liked his doting nature, she knew she needed a few minutes to herself to prepare to meet company. Martha bounded down the stairs shortly after she emerged from the bedroom with more comfortable clothes on and fussed over her for a few minutes. Rick's mother seemed quiet and distracted, like she4 knew something she and Rick didn't.

As the elevator doors opened into the lobby, the first thing he saw was an athletic young blonde woman in Navy summer whites giving him a subtle once over, before Rear Admiral Richard Webb stepped into view.

"Your mother tells me you have a lot of questions, son. I guess it's long past time you got some answers. Do you think we could go someplace quiet and talk?"


	14. The Prodigal Father

**Chapter Fourteen  
****The Prodigal Father**

* * *

_And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me  
He'd grown up just like me  
My boy was just like me _

Harry Chapin: "Cat's In The Cradle"

* * *

_As the elevator doors opened into the lobby, the first thing he saw was an athletic young blonde woman in US Navy summer whites giving him a subtle once over, before Rear Admiral Richard Webb stepped into view._

_"Your mother tells me you have a lot of questions, son. I guess it's long past time you got some answers. Do you think we could go someplace quiet and talk?"_

* * *

Rick stood there a moment caught somewhere between anger and curiosity. He had always been secretly curious about the other half of his family tree, considering his mother never once opened up about him. This had just happened to be the worst time imaginable for his _"father"_ to show up, bolt out of the blue to explain his over forty year absence from his life, his timely assistance over the last few years notwithstanding. Obviously his father and Kate's mother shared not only an employer, but an abysmal sense of timing as well. He was seriously considering showing him the door and telling him to go fuck himself when his cell phone chimed with a text from his mother.

**Richard.  
****At least hear what he  
****has to say, he's your  
****father.**

"All right..._Admiral_..." Rick said, sarcasm dripping from every syllable, "since mother is so adamant about it, come with me, but kindly leave your lovely assistant here. I'm trying to keep the strangers in the loft to a minimum, they aren't good for her anxiety level."

The athletic young blonde dressed in the crisp white duty uniform of a US Navy lieutenant with a Sam Browne belt holding a standard issue sidearm bristled at his demand, her eyes immediately shooting to Webb for confirmation. She looked more like she belonged in a fashion magazine, but she was most likely part of his security detail.

When he nodded his assent she stood down and took a position leaning against the wall where she could observe the entrance and the elevator. brought her forearm to her face and muttered into a mic under the cuff of her uniform shirt. He had spent enough time in DC to have seen his fair share of Secret Service details in action to know what he was looking at.

"Don't underestimate her son," Webb whispered to him with what sounded almost like pride, "she may not look intimidating to you, but she could put you and Eduardo there down before your hand got to your holster."

"I'm not exactly a pushover either..._Admiral_, and have you forgotten who I'm married to?" Rick replied stiffly, puffing up with pride of his own.

"Point taken, son." Webb replied.

"Let's get this over with," Rick said as the elevator doors opened, "Kate's had a really long day and needs to rest, but she won't with this hanging over our heads."

"I understand, son."

Rick slapped the emergency stop on the elevator control panel and turned to face Webb with a glare that could freeze molten lava.

"Let me make one thing perfectly clear..._Admiral_...I could care less if we share DNA, but Kate's been through more than enough. I swear on my daughter's grave if you do something to upset her, neither mother nor Kate, not even your bad-ass bodyguard Barbie down there will be able to stop me from making you bleed."

"I'm not doing this to upset either of you Richard." Webb replied, overlooking the undisguised threat, "I had my reasons for being gone, reasons your mother didn't understand right away either. But son, it wasn't because I didn't love your mother or you any less, as a matter of fact it was the exact opposite. I loved the two of you too much to expose you to the man I was and what I was involved in back then. I did as much for the two of you as my penance would allow."

"Your...penance?" Rick choked out, "What the hell were you into?"

"Let's go inside son," Webb replied quietly, a somber expression ghosting over his features that even his angry son couldn't miss, "a public elevator is not the place for this discussion."

"Yeah...right..." Rick replied, suddenly taken aback by the turn in the conversation as he reset the elevator and it resumed its slow climb to the top floor, as an uneasy silence descended upon them for the rest of the ride.

"Okay, _Admiral_, let's get this over with."

When the elevator doors opened, Rick motioned for Webb to follow him to his door, then ushered him through it. As Rick and Webb walked through the door into the loft, Rick could see Kate busily operating the French press and setting tea to steep. Though she still loved her skim latte with sugar free vanilla, and smiled in spite of herself whenever he bought her one, she had gotten into the habit of drinking chamomile tea during her pregnancy and had developed a taste for it.

This was just another of a long list of reminders of something that was not meant to be. Another reason he wished his _father _had chosen another time, _any other time but now_ to reveal his identity than during this difficult adjustment period after Kate's miscarriage.

Tonight was supposed to be about Kate, dammit, not his long lost father and his shadowy gray shrouded past. He had wanted to spend tonight alone with Kate, help her relax and decompress and allow her to feel good about the important step she had taken in her recovery. He had wanted to hold her in his arms, where he knew she felt safe, and provide her with as much positive reinforcement as he could for the incredibly brave brave thing she had done this morning. Allow her to feel _good _about the about the major step forward, not make her feel obligated to try to support him when she was on such shaky emotional ground herself.

Jessica Bennet's revelations about Alexis' death had been difficult enough for him to bear, dredging up painful memories he had thought long buried, pain he had not wanted to re-live, much less see reflected back at him through the eyes of the woman he loved She had enough problems of her own, without having to shoulder his too, though he loved her even more (if it was even possible to love her more than he already did) for her willingness to try.

_'It isn't fair,' _he thought to himself, '_why must every leap forward for us have to be accompanied by an event that forces us two steps back?'_

Rick wasn't so much angry at Richard Webb, necessarily, the man had done a lot to help him find Jake's killer and help him keep Kate alive. The man must have more than a few redeeming qualities if his mother had been willing to forgive him, after all. The man had even turned on his own Godson to save them both. Richard Rodgers was angry at fate, and the cruel machinations of an uncaring universe, but Webb would have to suffice as fate's whipping boy tonight.

"Kate, you remember Admiral Webb?"

Kate nodded, shooting Webb a look that not only conveyed her personal disdain for the man, for all of the secrets he had kept hidden from them both, but also managed to carry the message, _'Hurt my man and I _will _make you pay' _Rick had almost forgotten what her "death glare" looked like, even in her emotionally compromised state, she could still be intimidating.

In spite of his apprehension about this evening's turn of events and the effects they are likely to have on both himself and by extension, Kate, his heart soared a little to see some of her old personality showing through, a little of her old fire coming back. She had that look he recognized as "putting her game face on" before going into the box for an interrogation, she was truly a sight to behold, and it augured well for her recovery.

He leaned over her at the kitchen island and stage whispered, "It would seem your mother's recent attempt at reconciliation has _"inspired" _my father to come in out of the cold and unburden himself too."

Kate turned her face toward Richard Webb, giving him an up and down appraisal. Rick could tell by the look in her eyes, by that single furrow in her forehead, that she had Richard Webb weighed, measured, and found wanting in the barest fraction of an instant.

"I see." she replied before the neutral expression, her interrogation face, came back into effect as she turned her gaze to Rick's prodigal father and calmly asked him, "How do you take your coffee?"

"Black, two sugars, please." Webb replied, doing his level best not to pick up the gauntlet that he could tell Kate Beckett Rodgers was subtly throwing down. He wanted to do this right, or as right as he could under the circumstances. _'give me the Viet Cong and Al Quaida any day' _ he thought sardonically to himself. Either one would be less intimidating than this.

When Martha breezed down the stairs a moment later, in a rather understated (for her) outfit, she was struck dumb by the tableau in her son and daughter-in law's living room. Her fiance (Richard's father) sitting across the coffee table from their son and his wife who were trying not to look daggers at him while Kate served him coffee before settling onto the couch beside Rick, curling up at his side with her cup of hot herbal tea. The tension in the room could be cut with a knife and walked on like a tightrope.

This was going to be very awkward.

It took her a moment for her Broadway diva persona to slide back into place and find a seat in the easy chair kitty corner to the couch. The irony was not lost on her that she was sitting in the very spot from which she had held a gun pointed at the head of Kate's mother nearly a month ago. Not to mention where she had been seated when Jessica Bennet had returned to speak her peace in an effort to reconcile with her daughter and her husband. Thus far, from what she had heard, she was having much better luck with Jim than with Kate, though that position seemed to be softening over time.

She was of two minds on the matter now before them. Richard Webb's complete disappearance back in 1968 and his apparent abandonment of his parental responsibilities was still a sore spot between them, and likely always would be. She understood her son's anger and hesitation to trust him now, and heaven knows he had the right to be angry.

On the other hand, she had forgiven him over the past few years since his reappearance in their lives. Primarily because he had done so much since then to prove that his heart was in the right place and he'd proven to her satisfaction that he made every attempt to provide for them as best he could in his absence. He had truly stepped up these last few years since he resurfaced in their lives, been there to help them when he was needed most, even when she had initially rejected him and sent him packing. This confrontation had been a long time coming and though he had put a lot of thought into it, she did not envy him the position he was in.

"Where would you like me to start?" Webb stated, getting right to the point.

"The beginning would be nice." Rick said flatly, fully prepared to be angry and judgmental from the beginning, in spite of his mother's insistence that he keep an open mind. Webb pulled his wallet out of his pocket and fished around until he found a really old black and whit photo that he had had laminated years ago.

"With your grandparents dead, this whole story started with your aunt Nancy, my little sister." he said quietly, a look of devastated sadness on his aging features.

"My first in a long line of failures."

When Rick picked up the photo from the coffee table and turned it over, revealing a raven haired nineteen year old girl with pale eyes. The resemblances to both Alexis himself were striking. She had the same eyes, the same dimples and the shape of her lips. Kate curled into his side a little tighter in sympathy, she knew what such reminders did to him, and she couldn't begrudge him learning more about his family.

"She left Auburn while I was in country in Vietnam, to be an actress on Broadway and fell in with the wrong crowd. They raped and murdered her and left her broken body in Central Park. I was summoned to New York from the family home in Auburn to identify her body, by a detective named Sean Ryan back in 1967."

Martha sucked in a breath at that, thinking _'but for the grace of God go I.'_

"It turns out she had gotten involved with a crew who were into drugs, prostitution and white slavery. I did a little bit of recon and found out who they were, and had killed two of them after interrogating them for more intel on the others and their activities. I was treating this like a combat operation."

He paused for a moment to look over at Martha, love filling up his eyes and spilling out before turning back to Rick and Kate.

"That was until I met your mother. John Bracken and Michael Smith took me out to an off Broadway show and I was immediately smitten."

He stopped for a moment at Kate's reaction, and looked her in the eye.

"John Bracken Michael Smith and I had kept each other alive for three tours in Vietnam. That breeds a certain level of camaraderie and trust in operators, just ask your detective Esposito, I'm sure he can relate.

I need you to know that Billy wasn't always the man you knew. He was a good boy once and I let that blind me to what he became, and for that I am incredibly sorry."

When Kate's expression softened, he went back to his story.

"I had gotten one of the girls out, she was on the mend and had witnessed Nancy's murder, they had made all of the girls watch to show them what the price was for trying to get away. She had agreed to turn state's evidence, so I thought maybe I could let it go at that. The rest of them would go to prison for Nancy's murder and I could simply walk away. Detective Ryan suspected me, of course, but other than his cop instincts, he had no direct evidence of my involvement. They train us to be very discrete in covert ops and I was very good at my job. It should all be in his police report, Kate, you know his son, have him ask his dad about the _Killer Angel _caseback in the summer of '68 if you want more details."

"I think I heard of that case," Kate blurted out, "eight men were murdered in the course of three months, two in early July, the others spread out over the course of August. All of them were either drug runners, dealers or pimps. It's still unsolved."

"That was me, Kate." Webb replied, "I killed those men. For what they did to Nancy."

"Ryan had a surveillance detail on me during the month of July, but I could have slipped them with ease if I had wanted to, which at the time I didn't as I thought there was a chance it might be over. I wanted it to be, I loved your mother Rick, every bit as much as you love Kate and I was willing to let it go for her, willing to choose the living over the dead. I really wanted to...so much I could taste it. That July was likely the most magical of my entire life."

There were tears streaming down Martha's cheeks. Tears for what could have been, what they could have had together, what he had been willing to set aside at the time. Their life that could have been, but wasn't. Denied by a simple twist of fate.

"What happened, next." Kate asked, fully aware she would be checking with Ryan later.

"What happened, Kate," Rick replied, "was that before the DA could drop the charges and put her in protective custody, a high priced suit walked into the 12th Precinct and paid her bail. All they'd had on her was an old prostitution charge, so it was child's play for them. He walked her out the door and her naked, broken body was found draped over the jungle gym at a children's park less than forty-eight hours later."

Kate inhaled sharply at that turn of events, she had seen it a time or two herself when she had been with Vice. Drug runners really don't like it when one of their mules turns on them.

"The morning after that, the surveillance detail was gone from my hotel and there was an anonymous package for me at the front desk. In it was a mimeographed copy of the case file and the rap sheets for the two men I had killed at that point, along with both Nancy's autopsy report and that of the other girl, along with her rap sheet. There was a list of known associates with only six correlating names. There were other girls, some there by choice, some not, but it was certain that they were becoming a liability and without hard evidence Ryan's hands were tied. I couldn't walk away."

"I knew that once I finished it, there was no going back. There would be far too much blood on my hands, and even though Ryan must have known that I was the best hope those girls had to live through the week, he would have to go after me when it was done. There would be too much pressure to solve the case once more bodies started piling up. I got nearly all of the girls out that night, Kate, and killed two of their crew in the process. One of the girls was your mother. She had gotten swept up in events she was likely destined for a nasty end overseas as some rich foreigner's plaything."

Kate's eyes shot to him, startled by the turn of events, Rick's were only half a heartbeat behind. The encrypted letter from Johanna Beckett to Richard Webb they had found in her filing cabinet during the Raglan investigation all of a sudden making clearer sense.

"After I got your mother out, I got her back into law school, she met your father a few years later."

Kate opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, it took her a few minutes of this before she could force the words out. "If Ryan was actively hunting you after the murders, how did the case go cold?"

"Quite simply, Kate," Webb replied, "Sean Ryan wasn't the only one hunting me. The other was a young, hotshot NSA operative named Robert Gray. They were gearing up to start a covert counterintelligence ops unit and they wanted people with my skill-set and ruthlessness to be part of it. They would get me a presidential pardon for the murders I had committed, the trade off was that I had to sever all ties. Thus my penance had begun."

"For at least twenty years I went by the name Jackson Hunt when I was on U.S. Soil. The first few were spent as a team leader, but after the NSA cleaned house following the Watergate scandal I was put in charge of the whole operation. The rest, you could say was history."

Richard Rodgers sat, impassive for several minutes before he asked the inevitable question.

"Did you know about me? About Alexis?"

Webb thought about it for a moment, debating how much more to tell him, but plowed forward.

"Yes I did. I slipped into the hospital and cradled you in my arms the day you were born. There were a lot of assignments after that, so the next time I saw you, I think you must have been ten years old. You were looking for a book in the New York Public Library, and I suggested..."

"Casino Royale..." Rick finished the sentence for him. "I was hooked after the first five pages, read it over and over again. That book inspired me to start writing!"

"I remember cradling Alexis and looking her in the eyes the day she was born too. I was so proud of you for the way you looked after your family. All I wanted was to one day be worthy of the family I had created and abandoned. You deserved better than a murderer."

"I kept track of your writing, greased the wheels whenever I could, got you access to the CIA so you could write the Derek Storm Novels., and after Alexis...died...I greased the wheels to get you into the FBI. I knew you would need to find something to give your life meaning again. For me it was safeguarding this country, for you it was federal law enforcement."

Webb could tell that they were both overwhelmed. He had thrown a lot of information at them in a short span of time, so he moved to stand up.

"I hope I have helped you put this matter to rest, and I hope one day you can, if not forgive me for being gone for so much of your life. If there is anything you need, don't hesitate to contact me."

Richard Webb laid one of his business cards on the table. Rick moved to return the photo of Nancy that was still on the table, but he waved his son off.

"Keep it, son, I have others. I would like to give you something that I brought with me in the car. Something I think you should have. Just give me a moment."

Webb took out his cell phone and dialed a number from memory. When the line picked up he said "Margaret, please be a dear and bring up the package I left in the car. Thank you."

A few moments later, there was a knock at the door, which Martha answered, ushering the young bodyguard into the room. Who handed the package to Webb, then moved back to the door and took up a parade rest stance near the door.

Webb opened the package and presented it to Rick. At his questioning look Webb added,

"This is the Webb family bible. The genealogy goes back almost two hundred years, but the book itself once belonged to your great grandfather. I added yours and Alexis' names to it, and I hope one day should you try again, your childrens' names as well. On that note I will take my leave. I hope you have a pleasant evening."

With that, Richard Webb was on his way out the door with Margaret in tow, Martha was not far behind, letting them both know she was on her way back to her own apartment, leaving the two of them alone to process all that they had just learned.

As they did the night Jessica Bennet had been there to unburden herself, they silently agreed to sleep on what they had learned before they discussed it and promptly went through their evening routine before curling up in bed together and falling into sleep's blissful, peaceful oblivion.

They would have much to discuss in the morning.


	15. Finding Their Way

**Chapter Fifteen  
****Finding Their Way**

As the weeks went by, Kate's confidence grew as she found the strength to conquer her fear and force it back into the box in the darkest corner of her psyche where it belonged. More and more often, and for greater lengths of time she was able to comfortably function outside the loft by herself. (though she never felt safer or more confident than when Rick was by her side, watching her back) She spent a great deal of her spare time while Rick was at work either in the rooftop garden, tending the roses there or sitting in the gazebo, writing. The few times that Rick was able to arrive unnoticed, he was moved nearly to tears by the look of utter serenity on her face.

The only thing she patently refused to do under any circumstances was get behind the wheel. Rick found this behavior odd and way out of character for her, as some of their earliest disagreements had been about who would drive to crime scenes. He let it go for the time being, though. It was an issue for another time.

* * *

Two weeks after her surprise appearance at the Federal Building, the two of them, along with Martha, Richard Webb, James Beckett and Jessica Bennet held a small memorial for the little one they lost. Rick and Kate had learned since her miscarriage that the fetus would have been a girl, and they decided together, after much soul searching, to give her a name and provide some tangible reminder that she had existed. To that end, a small white stone was placed in the sheltered knoll next to Alexis' grave.

**Emily Mae Rodgers  
****Mommy and Daddy  
****love you, always**

Kate was in tears as the minister read a few words over the small white marble stone with a lamb carved onto the top of it. This was harder on her than she thought it would be. Rick had one arm wrapped around her waist to comfort her in their shared grief for the little one who had never had the opportunity to draw breath. Dr. Burke had been supportive of the idea, a place to mourn, to give them a tangible focus for their grief and loss to allow them to find their way toward acceptance. Rick knelt in front of Alexis' stone, kissed his fingers and pressed them to the raised letters of her name.

"Look after your sister for us, Pumpkin, I love you." Rick whispered as he began to choke up.

For the first time since their arrival in the cemetery, Rick's eyes welled up with tears as he sank fully to his knees, overwhelmed by the agony he felt for the child he had, loved, lost and still mourned to this day. The silent, secret pain that she had first borne witness to in this very spot all those years ago, which had allowed Kate to see his humanity and led to her eventually falling in love with him. She reached down and laid a comforting hand on his shoulder, pulling herself out of the deep well of her own grief to bring him back from the brink his own. Partners even in this.

She had seen with her own eyes the results of her mother's revelation on her husband. He had tried in vain to bury the hurt deep down. So he could be her rock when she needed him most. Did his damnedest to hide how the knowledge that Alexis had been murdered had upended his entire world all over again and sent him spiraling into his own private hell.

The FBI Special Agent he was now had gone to war with the writer he had once been in his head, trying to figure out what warning signs he had missed back then, what he should have known and what he could have and should have done to prevent it. Only there were no answers to be found there. Something she knew from personal experience.

She had found him one morning shortly after her mother's second visit to the loft, (she still only had fuzzy recollections of her first visit) curled up, on the bed in the room that had once belonged to Alexis, where he had cried himself to sleep because he was afraid his own resurgent grief would intrude upon her recovery.

_That stupid, big hearted, sentimental, sensitive man._ She had thought to herself. She loved him so much, even when he was being so...stupid. Wallowing alone drowning in his own pain when he thought no one could see, rather than risk hurting her. He had always worked so hard trying to take care of her, even when she didn't want him to.

She would have to explain to him later how that was supposed to work both ways. That she wouldn't break if he leaned on her when he needed to. They were partners, it was what they are supposed to do. This hurt too would one day pass, eventually become something more manageable. They would get through it together like they had since they found each other.

* * *

At the FBI field office, re-staffing in the post Bracken world was proceeding apace. Newly minted FBI Field Agent Teresa Lisbon in her crisp business suit had returned from the mandatory training cycle at Quantico, with her husband Patrick Jane in tow. As the two of them integrated into his command they promptly began to stand out, making Rick think that perhaps Gale Bertram's exaggerated assessment had not been so far off the mark after all.

It was readily apparent that they both missed their previous team, but they seemed to be coping well and even began to make friends. Most of the agents assembled had the fact that they were new to either New York or Federal Law Enforcement, or like Lisbon, both. Though hesitant at first, Teresa was drawn in by Rebecca's friendly and compassionate nature and they soon became thick as thieves.

Rick was secretly in awe of what the married couple from Sacramento could accomplish when they pooled their unique talents together to work a case. It reminded him so much of his pairing with Kate at the 12th. Other times wanting to strangle Patrick Jane with his bare hands till his eyes bugged out of his head.

The man could be an insufferable, egotistical, overbearing ass sometimes, (especially when he believed that he was right, which was most of the time) and it seemed that only Agent Lisbon had the influence to exert even a modicum of control over his behavior. He was surprised Gale Bertram hadn't given himself a concussion pounding his forehead on his desk, he sure wanted to, and he got the impression Jane liked him better than his counterpart in the CBI.

He swore up and down that Teresa Lisbon must have the patience of a saint to have put up with his antics for so long. Jane reminded him far too much of the "Richard Freaking Castle" playboy millionaire persona he had adopted at Gina and Paula's urging after Kyra had left him. He was sure Kate would have killed the man and enlisted Lanie to help her either dispose of his corpse, or make his death look like an accident if she had been in Teresa Lisbon's sensible low heeled shoes for long.

He would probably have found this incredibly funny if it were happening under anyone's command but his. Somehow he found it a lot less amusing when it was him reaching for the Advil.

* * *

As time went on, the chasm between Kate and her mother began to narrow, due mostly to Jessica's persistence and Jim Beckett's patient intercession between them. The occasional phone conversation gave way to lunches at Remy's and slowly invitations to Sunday dinner. Though Jessica Bennet was, in many ways, a completely different person than Johanna Beckett, the pea pod bond between mother and daughter eventually won out in the end. She even accompanied Kate on her shopping trip with Lanie and Martha to buy a dress for her book launch party next week.

The road to reconciliation was not nearly as smooth between Rick and Richard Webb. It progressed much more slowly, but with Martha's patience and relentless determination to knit her family back together, the two of them eventually began to find some common ground.

As Rick gradually came to terms with his abandonment issues and Webb worked through his guilt for walking out on his family a level of respect began to form. The two of them would probably never grow as close as Kate and her mother were becoming (some chasms were simply too wide and deep to cross) but Rick at least had come to accept that his father wanted a place in his life, and part of him wanted that too.

They were working on it.

Until then, Richard Rodgers had a promise to keep to Kate so he would need to pick up his new suit. He hadn't been down the red carpet for a book launch party in a very long time, but oddly enough he actually found himself excited at the prospect.

He owed the woman he loved nothing less.


	16. Ruggedly Handsome Arm Candy

**Chapter Sixteen  
****Ruggedly Handsome Arm Candy**

_Kiss me out of the bearded barley  
Nightly, beside the green, green grass  
Swing, swing, swing the spinning step  
You wear those shoes and I will wear that dress._

_Oh, kiss me beneath the milky twilight_  
_Lead me out on the moonlit floor_  
_Lift your open hand_  
_Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance_  
_Silver moon's sparkling_  
_So kiss me_

Sixpence None the Richer: Kiss Me

* * *

Kate was more nervous than she had ever been at a public event since the first time she had dressed up as Lt. Chloe at a Nebula 9 convention. This was her first official public appearance to promote her new book since the accident, and the first ever with her husband in attendance. Kate was well acquainted with his insecurity on the matter, and she knew it was never about a lack of support on his part. He simply didn't want the fame (and in some cases infamy) that he had rejected so many years ago to overshadow her achievement. The desire he once had for the spotlight, bordering on near obsession, simply wasn't in him anymore. To be honest she wasn't wild about it either, like her much preferring her private life with Rick, but this the life she had chosen, the hand she was dealt after her shooting, so she was determined to play it out.

Before tonight, she generally had her father on her arm when she walked the red carpet at the events Black Pawn required of her. She always politely (and sometimes not so politely) refused Gina and Paula's offers to provide more "suitable" (read younger and flashier) arm candy. Kate Beckett Rodgers had no interest in being pimped out by her publisher to some male model/actor or pretend to be something she wasn't just to sell books. It was an old argument and she refused to have it with them anymore.

She guarded her private life too jealously, loved her husband too deeply and respected her growing fan base too much to play such games with any of them. She was sure that Paula and Gina would be more enthusiastic about Rick attending events with her if it had meant he was gearing up to mount a comeback, or was willing to throw his still considerable star power into the mix, but everybody knew that would never be in the cards, no matter how much the two of them (and secretly, herself too) might wish for that to be so. Some wounds were simply too deep to heal.

Kate stood in front of the full length mirror upstairs in the guest room of the loft, taking stock of her appearance. She had shimmied into the blood red, almost impossibly tight, fitted dress which adequately covered everything, yet left little of her figure to the imagination. It showed off her cleavage to just above the bullet scar between her breasts and was fitted especially for her (at Martha's expense) so she wouldn't need a bra. She had locked it in the guest room closet shortly after her shopping trip with Lanie, Martha, and her mother then forbade Rick so much as a peek at it until tonight. She had only recently found a wrap, clutch and the perfect pair of four inch stiletto heels to go with it and she wanted him to have the full effect when he first saw her in it.

She would let Rick wait until later to find out she had decided to go commando. The dress was long enough (almost knee length) that with her long, shapely legs and those gloriously high heels, there would be no "wardrobe malfunctions" to ruin his surprise when she let him peel it off of her later. She would discretely keep her knees together when she got out of the limo the car service was sending to be sure. It would make his reward for setting aside his insecurities about his former life to accompany her to her book launch all the sweeter when she rendered him speechless when they got home.

She was looking forward to their "private reading," later, thinking about what she wanted to do with her husband helped her to focus so she could keep her lingering nerves at bay. She planned to have her wicked, wicked way with him until they both forgot their own names. She was definitely feeling frisky tonight, and knew that once she got Rick sufficiently wound up, she would have a tiger by the tail. The very thought of which added a little extra blush to her cheeks and an evil glint to her eye. He really had no idea...

* * *

Rick was downstairs in the living room trying in vain to get the knot for his bow tie matching the brand new Armani suit that his mother had ordered for him. It's blue tailored shirt brought out his eyes to complete his ensemble. His mother had produced a blood red immaculately folded handkerchief and slid it into his breast pocket before she had flitted out the door to meet the car that Richard Webb had sent for her, leaving him fumbling with his tie until Jessica Bennet came to his rescue.

"I used to have to do this for Katie's father all the time," she said by way of explanation, the memory having just popped into her mind, she was remembering more about her previous life every day. "He never could figure these damn things out. He preferred the silk neckties he wore in court just a little too much."

When she finished her task, she kissed him lightly on the cheek and said, "That was for agreeing to accompany Katie tonight, I know what a big deal this is for you. Jim has a prior engagement." She kissed him again in the same spot and said, "That is for loving our Katie and taking such good care of her over the years, when her father and I couldn't, thank you."

"I'm honored to have her in my life, Johanna," Rick replied, choking up a little, "honored that she would have anything to do with me, that she loves me. She saved me from myself, keeps on saving me from myself, and I will love her as long as I live."

"Hush, you," she said sweetly, with a mild swat to his arm, "if you keep saying things like that and make me ruin my mascara I will have to hurt you."

At that moment, Rick turned around at the sound of high heels at the stairs. The first thing he saw was Kate's long, toned legs encased in black stockings and a pair of blood red stiletto heels as she slowly descended the stairs. As she came fully into view in the blood red knee length figure-hugging dress he was struck dumb, literally losing the capacity for speech, his mouth hanging open.

"Wow..." was the only word that sprang to mind that he could get past his vocal chords.

Kate did a slow turn to give him the full effect, to which he finally managed a multi-syllable word.

"Extraordinary" he said in a hoarse whisper, neither his voice nor his eyes able to disguise the unmitigated lust he was feeling for his wife as she spun around in a dress that left little to his imagination. (or more accurately his memory) She must have been seriously working out the last few weeks to feel confident enough to pull off that dress. Which, unsurprisingly, was exactly what he wanted to do. RIGHT NOW.

Kate could sense the effect she was having on him, could practically feel the rippling waves of desire rolling off of her husband. She could almost feel his eyes as they took a tour of her planes and curves. She realized that they had better be on their way or he was going to strip the dress off of her and take her on the dining room table, and she would let him. Which would make them really late for her party, if they got there at all.

She took in his appearance with more than a passing interest. This was the most dressed up he had been since their wedding. She had to admit that he cut a dashing figure in a tux. Right down to the FBI seal and American Flag pins on his lapel and the barely noticeable bulge under his left arm from the shoulder holster for his Sig Sauer, noting he had eschewed his quick draw holster for one more easily concealed.

"We had better get going or we'll never get out of here."

Rick said, reading her mind as he helped her with her silk wrap, and herded her out the door with a gentle hand at the small of her back. This small, light point of contact made her feel like she had been touched by a live wire feeling as if someone had cranked up the room's heat by ten degrees. This time it was Kate who was having trouble with full sentences.

"Mmhmm"

* * *

A few minutes later, after a brief but sexually charged ride down to the lobby in the elevator, Rick offered Kate his arm, which she accepted and stepped out the door of the building toward their waiting limo. When Sergei (dressed in a neatly tailored formal suit, with a telltale bulge under his own left arm) stepped out of the passenger side of the limo and walked around to open their door they noticed a young woman dressed smartly in a limo driver's uniform.

"My daughter, Ekaterina." Sergei said warmly, his chest puffed out with pride. "She received livery license last week. First day on job!"

"And how did Nikita's latest violin recital go, Sergei?" Kate asked him.

Just when they thought he couldn't puff up more with pride, Sergei managed to do it. Little Nikita was only ten years old, but she brought him and Irina so much joy. Her mother, Ekaterina tended to be more inclined toward his line of work, which worried him to no end. Even as a child back in Russia, Kat, as she liked to be called, had been more interested in guns, knives and martial arts than her dolls or her mother's music. Her husband was a US Marine, who had been killed in the line of duty five years ago, whom she had met when they were both teenagers the year after their family had relocated to the United States.

"Irina wanted me to thank you, Rick, for the gift of the violin. When Nikita's had been broken three days before the recital she was inconsolable. We didn't think we could get her a suitable replacement in time."

"It was nothing, Sergei." Rick replied, before they took a seat in the car where he turned and looked at Kate, a single tear in his eye.

"It was hers, wasn't it?" she whispered.

Rick nodded, "She'd started taking lessons when she was four. She was almost as good as Nikita before..."

He trailed off, not wanting to overshadow Kate's big night with his sad memories and she let him, nearly overwhelmed by his generosity and his big heart. She doubted that Sergei could have found one nearly as good on a limo driver's salary, especially on such short notice. That Rick would have removed something from his daughter's room and paid to have it reconditioned just to make Sergei's granddaughter smile warmed her heart. His soft spot for children overpowering even his own hurt.

"You're a good man, Richard Rodgers, and I love you a little more every day."

She ran her thumb over Rick's cheek, wiping the track of his single tear away. The rest of the drive was uneventful, the two of them sat together in the back of the Limousine as an easy companionable silence settled into place between them.

* * *

On the other side of the glass Sergei and his daughter were having a conversation of their own in hushed tones.

"Eto byl deystvitel'no khorosh, chto on sdelal dlya Nikity, otets," (That was really nice what he did for Nikita, father)

"English, when we are in public, dorogoy, English." Sergei replied, "They are good people Ekaterina, Richard Webb saved all of our lives when he got us out of Russia, even though he and I were once enemies. I am paying back this debt by looking after his family. It's a debt of honor."

"I know, dad," she replied, "you tell me every chance you get."

"If I can teach you nothing else before I die, little one, it will be about honor. Especially if you want to follow me into my profession."

"I really wish you wouldn't say things like that, father." Kat replied, shifting her gaze away from him and back to the road.

"There are few guarantees in this life, little one, something your husband knew all too well."

When her expression softened, he swallowed and said, "But enough of this, we have a job to do, da?"

She nodded, and her pale blue eyes hardened to steel as she pulled the limo expertly up to the red carpet, her professional game face on and her father exited to get the door for their passengers.

* * *

When Sergei opened the door for them, Rick stepped out of the back of the limo and gave Kate a hand up as she rose to her feet before they turned and he regarded a world he had left behind well over a decade ago as they walked up the red carpet arm in arm, to the accompaniment of flashbulbs and the shouts of paparazzi trying to get Kate's attention. They managed to make it into the building with a minimum of fuss. He could tell the presence of so many people at once was becoming a problem for her by the increasing tension in her posture and the death-grip she had on his fingers so he got them into the building as quickly as he could.

Once inside her tension faded as the took the elevator to the top floor of the banquet hall where the main party was waiting for Katherine Beckett, the guest of honor.

As if on cue, Rick could hear the clear voice of Gina Cowel as she came to the end of her rehearsed speech,

"...and now, without further ado, I present to you, the Mistress of the Macabre, Katherine Beckett!"

With that introduction, the party went into full swing.

Back when he had been doing this once a year, Rick would have split off with whatever pretty thing Gina or Paula had arranged to be on his arm, and he would have moved among the masses of people signing books, invitations, or in many cases some woman's chest. All the while with a fake smile plastered on his face, like he enjoyed these canned events. He had preferred the book signings, being among the rank and file of his fans, this was just to press the flesh and talk to the right people.

Paula did manage to pull Kate away from him leaving him alone at the bar for a few moments as she took her to shake hands with some "important" stuffed shirt she needed to meet for the sake of publicity. He had always hated these things, and he could tell Kate wasn't wild about them either. If anything she was much more reserved than he ever was. She seemed to prefer for her books to do her talking for her, not the rumor mill. The gossip rags actually found her rather boring.

Still her books sold. Nothing like murder mysteries written by a former NYPD Homicide Detective to give her work the air of authenticity that he had had to do a lot more research for. She was a genuine person when her fans met her, she didn't play publicity mind games with then on Page six, and they loved her for it. Rick sat at the bar and nursed his bourbon on the rocks and waited for her to come back.

After Kate finished glad-handing the VIP's that this party was really for, at least two of whom were a bit to touchy feely for her liking, she heard a familiar voice behind her.

"You always did look good when you dolled yourself up, Kate." Will Sorenson said.

Paula was right behind her nudging her forward, "I see you've met the new Director of the Boston FBI Field Office, William Sorenson."

"_Director_ Sorenson, thank you so very much for coming." Kate said so coldly that even Paula shivered uncomfortably, unaware that there had been a history between them. It had been become standard operating procedure to introduce Kate to any law enforcement personnel who came to these things, she was generally happy to see them, given her former profession, she found their presence comforting...usually. Paula went in search of a drink to put the fires out, and when she was gone, Will placed a hand on her arm, softly, in a pleading gesture.

"When my fiance got the invitation to this party and asked me to come with her I knew this was an opportunity for me to tell you how sorry I am about my behavior the last time we..."

Kate cut him off by yanking her arm away from his touch as if burned.

"I'm not the one you should be apologizing to here, Will, and you know it." Kate hissed, her voice barely above a whisper, but her contempt for him clear to read, "Do you have any idea what your callous statement did to him? What losing his only daughter did to him? How much it kills him a little inside to this very day? Well do you?"

Will noticeably blanched at her words, because he knew she was right. Knew because he was going to be a father soon himself, and what happened to Rick was now his own worst case nightmare scenario.

"Just leave him alone, Will, I know you will have to have dealings with him from time to time because of your jobs, but otherwise just leave him alone, leave us alone. If I had wanted to hear your confession I wouldn't have blocked your number. Please excuse me, but I left the man I love sitting alone at the bar for too long as it is. Good evening."

With that she spun on one of her expensive stilettos and stalked away from him in search of a drink, leaving Will Sorenson standing in her wake. He wasn't terribly surprised, to be honest it was more than he felt he deserved.

_'She's right' _he thought to himself, _'she really isn't the one I owe an apology to, I was a real horse's ass.'_

As he watched her walk away, he mused on how irreparably he had burned this particular bridge, how he had treated her like a child and gone behind her back to her partner, then played dirty pool with a statement so completely out of line to say to a man grieving a dead child, regardless of the provocation, or how good his intentions might have been.

The shame he felt over that outburst has eaten at him ever since. Though he hadn't realized just how much until Carrie had told him she was pregnant, that he would be a father. He should have known better, now he was paying the price for his childishly jealous outburst.

He finished his drink and did exactly what Kate told him to do, he quietly slipped away to his fiance whispered in her ear and they made their discreet exit. Though he made himself a promise that he would one day make this right until he did, he would not be happy with the man he saw in the mirror every morning, and he wanted his child to have a father worth respecting.

Kate did her best to shake off her anger over the unexpected encounter with Will Sorenson. She was certain he meant well, but she felt it wasn't her place to give him the absolution he sought. Only one person could and she wasn't sure she trusted Will to play nice with him. She knew eventually they would have to work this out. Right now she just wanted to collect her husband, go home, and make them both forget, at least for tonight anyway, that she had ever met William Sorenson.

* * *

A few hours later

Rick and Kate lay panting on their bed, basking in the afterglow. After making their exit from the party they had barely been able to keep their hands off of each other. They had managed to keep keep things...mostly...PG rated. They owed Sergei and his daughter that much.

As soon as they got inside the loft, however all bets were off.

Before they got through the living room, her "little secret" had been discovered when he pulled her dress up to her waist and hauled her up as she wrapped his legs around him.

Round one had taken place on the counter top of the kitchen island, followed quickly by round two on the desk in their study...followed quickly thereafter by round three with her pressed against the door to their bedroom. They had only just finished round four and they were wrapped all over each other. As they caught their collective breath, they both fell into blissful slumber, feeling pretty damn good about themselves.

* * *

Six weeks later

Kate had felt weird for weeks, she couldn't put her finger on it until she realized her [period was late by two weeks. She sat alone in the bathroom shaking, not from cold as she waited for the pregnancy test. She didn't realize she had been holding her breath until the timer from her cell phone went off, causing her to jump in near fright. She picked up the small plastic instrument and wasn't sure whether she should should laugh, cry, or faint dead away.

It was positive.

* * *

_****Author's note:****_

_**For those who have been reading the preceding stories you may note that I got them to this point in a much different manner. I decided to take a different route with Kate becoming pregnant again. I just didn't much feel like writing a fight between them, but I kept the sex.**_

_**I hope you guys didn't mind.**_

_**Mark**_


	17. The Ties That Bind

**Chapter Seventeen  
****The Ties That Bind**

David Marshall had been stalking Katherine Beckett in secret since her writing career began. He had been a dedicated fan of Richard Castle for years since his words saved his life and had given him purpose. He had bought her first book because _he_ had written the forward. When he finished her first book he had fallen in love. He was certain that they shared a common destiny and that the husband written of in her bio was as much a work of fiction as Richard Castle's playboy image had been.

He had been sure someone had intentionally killed his hero's little girl and took his words away. His friends had all thought he was crazy, but he simply knew it to be true. Knew it was a conspiracy to rob him of his destiny.

Just when he had lost all hope and had bought a pistol to kill himself, his hero had found the words one last time, and passed the torch to the one he was now certain was his preordained soul mate before he once again fell silent. She was beautiful and talented...and she was destined to be his. Only something had been keeping her from him. Something he could not comprehend was keeping her in that loft. Keeping her and him from their true destiny to be together.

It wasn't until the pictures from the red carpet of her most recent book launch party, that he realized what it was. Richard Castle. The empty shell of him anyway. She may have drawn inspiration from this fiction that was Richard Rodgers, but it was this doppelganger, this pretender with Richard Castle's face that was keeping them apart. There was only one way to save the woman that was destined to be his.

Richard Castle must die.

* * *

The morning after Kate had discovered she was pregnant began just like any other. Rick and Kate got out of bed, put on their exercise gear and went out for their early morning five mile run, showered dressed, then ate breakfast, before Rick slid his holstered Sig Sauer onto his belt, slipped on his sport jacket and headed out to go to work.

Kate had hidden the eight pregnancy tests she had taken...all positive and thrown all but the first one away with the kitchen trash before Rick woke that morning. She made an appointment with the OB/GYN who had handled her last pregnancy and got her to fit her in later that day, after Rick would be safely at work and had arranged for Sergei to drive her there.

Though this had not been a planned thing, she had not gone back onto her birth control pills for fear of problems from her anti-anxiety drugs. She knew once Rick found out he would be over the moon, but she did not want to get his hopes up, only to dash them later if Dr Windgate discovered otherwise. She needed to know for sure. For now at least, as far as Rick knew she was going in for a standard gynecological exam.

She wasn't sure which scared her more. The possibility of being pregnant again, or the crushing disappointment Rick would feel if this were a false positive. He didn't deserve any more pain because of her, so she had to be sure before she told him.

She would tell him the truth when he got home though, one way or the other. The thought of keeping secrets from him now made her sick to her stomach.

* * *

David Marshall lay in wait for his prey. He knew that the imposter always stopped at this coffee shop on his way home after five PM. He always bought two coffees and a bear claw before continuing to the loft where he kept Kate Beckett prisoner. He had no idea what the significance of this was, perhaps he kept her drugged when she wasn't writing, he didn't know. He would kill this doppelganger and free her from the spell he had over her and then she would be his.

The snub nosed Smith and Wesson model 10 .38 caliber Police Special felt small in his hands. He had originally bought it to kill himself, but it now symbolized the new life that he and Kate would have when the pretender was dead.

It was only quarter to five, he would wait here for him to come out of the coffee shop. Soon...soon the pretender would be dead, Richard Castle's spirit would be free to rise to heaven to be with his daughter where he belonged, and Katherine Beckett would be his.

When the appointed time came, he saw the black Suburban he drove pull into the parking lot in front of the brick facade of the small coffee shop. He slipped the small .38 caliber handgun from his waistband and slipped it into his jacket pocket and approached him, ready to make his stand.

* * *

Richard Rodgers managed to beat the rush hour traffic to get to the coffee house where he always bought the coffee and bear claw that made Kate smile when he brought them to her. That small piece of normalcy from the time when they once sat across from each other at the 12th Precinct.

As he left the building with the tray of coffees and the bag with her bear claw in his hand, he walked around to the driver's side of his Suburban only to hear running feet and a man shouting obscenities at him. He didn't see the gun until it was too late and three shots rang out.

The first shot struck him in the left shoulder, spinning him around and causing him to drop the tray of coffee and slamming him gracelessly into the quarter panel of his suburban. The other two went wide. Caught by his Suburban's bullet resistant driver's side window.

Rick's next actions took place almost without conscious thought. His right hand went to his Sig Sauer P-226, drew his weapon and in a well practiced motion lined up his sights, and returned fire. His .40 caliber pistol's booming report spoke twice.

The first shot center-punched his assailant straight through the heart before he could fire again, the second shot sent a .40 caliber hollow point round dead center through his forehead. Either shot would have been instantly fatal, both were catastrophically so. David Marshall was dead before his body hit the ground.

Running on adrenaline, blood spilling from an open wound, Rick stepped toward his assailant's body and kicked the snub nosed .38 out of his dead hand before he became dizzy and disoriented. The world seemed to be spinning at an odd angle before his shoulders found the unforgiving facade of the coffee shop's wall and he slid to the ground trailing blood on the brick wall behind him. He tried to reach for his cell phone but his left arm was not obeying his commands.

The last thing he saw before the shadows claimed him were the penetrating steel blue eyes of a young woman, her eyes welling with tears, who seemed oddly familiar, he smiled at her just before the darkness claimed him.

* * *

Ekaterina Svetlana Ivonova Beauregard pressed her scarf into the wound in Rick's shoulder with her left hand as she dialed 911. He was losing a lot of blood so she hoped the ambulance would hurry, he was fading fast.

She had been shopping for Nikita's eleventh birthday party and had stopped here to get a cup of coffee and a danish when she had seen Agent Rodgers come in to get his usual coffees and bear claw on his way home. She kept her head down, not wanting him to recognize her, she didn't wish to intrude on his afternoon ritual for his wife.

When she heard the shots, three loud pops from what sounded like a .38 caliber pistol, she drew the Tokarev TT-33 semi-automatic her father had given her from her purse, flicked off the safety and moved quickly but quietly outside. She was aware of her father's debt of honor concerning Richard Webb's family and was determined to uphold her family's honor in her father's absence.

On her way out the door, she heard two loud booming reports from the .40 caliber pistol she knew that Agent Rodgers carried. She stepped cautiously outside the coffee shop while the other patrons cowered, careful to check her corners and her six in case the man lying dead on the pavement had accomplices, precisely as her father taught her, she saw Agent Rodgers sliding down the face of the brick facade near his SUV, trailing blood down the wall as he slid to the ground. She slipped her pistol back into her purse and did what she could to stem the bleeding as she dialed 911.

"Stay with me, Agent Rodgers...your family needs you." she whispered to him, as she pressed her scarf into the wound in his shoulder, her voice shaking, "You...you...still haven't heard my Nikita play the violin you...you...gave her."

Rick smiled a little for her benefit as his vision swam, "I'm sure she plays...beautifully..." but trailed off as the shadows claimed him. Her tears dripping onto her hands, mingling with his blood.

When the ambulance arrived, she told the paramedic everything she knew about his wound as they took over his care and strapped him onto the gurney. She jumped into the back of the ambulance before they could close the door, having taken charge of his service weapon.

Somebody had tried to murder Richard Webb's son in the street. Her father's code of honor (which he had drummed into her since she could walk) demanded he be protected. Until her father arrived, she knew that duty rested with her. She was sure the police would want to speak to her. They could come find her at the hospital.

She picked up her cell phone and dialed her father's number from memory. She knew he was with Mrs. Rodgers at her OB/GYN appointment across town. She would have to be told. She might be in danger too, and her father needed to be warned.

* * *

Twenty minutes later Kate Beckett appeared in the waiting room, her face ashen and contorted with fear. Sergei walked up to his daughter and enveloped her in his arms. She had kept her composure in the ambulance but as her father wrapped her up, Ekaterina burst into tears.

"I did everything I could, father, but it was all over before I got outside, if I'd moved a little faster..."

"You did well, moya malen'kaya koshka," (my little Kat) Sergei whispered comfortingly into her hair, his pride in her never greater until this day, "you kept him alive until the paramedics came, you got him here, you did enough shhh."

"You called "Uncle Richard?" Kat asked through her tears. She had called Richard Webb that since she was twelve years old.

"Da, little one, he should be here soon." Sergei replied after kissing the top of her head. His attention refocusing

"How will Mrs. Rodgers react to that?" she asked, concerned for the woman sitting in one of the chairs in the waiting room, her ashen face buried in her hands, unable to control her sobbing. Neither of them was sure how to comfort her.

"That remains to be seen." Sergei replied, himself unsure what to expect.

Half an hour later, the waiting room was filled with Kate and Rick's friends. Lanie sat with her, while Ryan and Esposito took Ekaterina's statement and relieved her of Rick's sidearm, which she had safed and slipped into a plastic bag while in the ambulance. When she was done, she took up station next to her father, guarding the door to the waiting room. Between the two of them, their eyes took in everything and missed nothing.

Since they knew the victim and were friends of his wife, they couldn't officially run the case, though the federal investigation was mostly a formality as his assailant was dead, and a search of his apartment showed he was a loner with an obsessive attachment to first Richard Castle and then Katherine Beckett. He'd been hospitalized for several months following Richard Castle's retirement but had gone off of his meds shortly after Heat Wave came out.

There were photos of her from every single public event in which she had made even a brief appearance, though it seemed that the photos from the red carpet of Her most recent launch party seemed to have set him off as Agent Rodgers had been either cut out, or drawn over in blood red marker. This case was pretty much closed courtesy to Rick's instincts and dead aim.

They were really here to give Kate the moral support she needed until either her father could be reached, or Richard Rodgers woke up. Whichever came first.

* * *

When Richard Webb walked in, only three people recognized him.

Unfortunately for him, one of them is Kate Beckett.

"You!" she spat, angrily as she rose from her seat. "What are you doing here?"

"He's my son." Richard Webb replied, "Where else would I be?"

"You abandoned him, abandoned Martha," Kate shot back at him, "I find _that_ hard to believe!"

"I left them Kate, but I did not _abandon_ them." Rick replied softly, "I did what I could, when I could, as often as I could."

"Except for the _one thing_ from you that he needed the most, a _father_!" She spat at him, her worry pain and anger overflowing and spilling from her very pores as she advanced on him and slapped him in the face, then pummeled his chest weakly, "and now he might...he might..."

Webb grabbed Kate's arms and looked her in the eyes as she struggled in his powerful hands. "NO! Don't you say it, Kate! Don't you _dare_. My _son_ is a fighter, he will come back to us, come back to you."

Kate flinched under his gaze, could not meet the certainty in his eyes, her fears were simply too strong. Web took his right arm off her shoulder and slid it under her chin, lifting her face until their eyes met again. "I know my son. I looked in his eyes and saw his strength on the day he was _born_, Kate Beckett. If he will fight for anyone, he _will _fight for you. Never, _ever_ forget that."

With that he pulled her into his embrace as she broke down in his arms. He knew in this moment that his family didn't need him to be a guardian angel, or a specter from Martha's past, nor did they need him to be Nemesis himself. They needed him to be a father. _Kate_ needed him to be here in a way he had never been for his son. It was time to prove himself _worthy_ of forgiveness.

_Mission accepted._

* * *

Two hours later when the doctor came out to talk to Kate. She pulled herself from Richard Webb's embrace and rose to her full height to meet the woman. Webb rose from his own chair and stood behind her left shoulder. A comforting hand at the small of her back, lending her strength, much as her husband would have. She was confused by this sudden tender side that she had discovered, given what little she knew of him from her mother. But it was not an unwelcome revelation.

"Mrs. Rodgers, my name is Doctor Elizabeth Morgan, I worked on your husband." she stated. "The good news is that the gunshot wound he sustained a was a clean through and through. The bullet never struck bone and it managed to avoid any major nerve clusters. The physical damage was actually quite minimal, for the time being he is stable and his prognosis for recovery is good. On that score, your husband is very lucky."

Kate looked down for a moment, whispering a silent thank you to whatever deity might be listening.

Webb moved his hand from Kate's back to her shoulder and asked the question Kate couldn't bring herself to.

"What's the bad news, Doc?"

"The bad news," Dr. Morgan replied, "was that the bulled nicked a major artery on it's way through his shoulder. We got it closed back up but he lost a lot of blood. We can't be sure if his brain was receiving enough oxygen after the attack. We have a full MRI scan scheduled for later tonight to assess any potential brain damage. The rest is up to him."

She looked past Kate to Ekaterina standing next to her father at the doorway, "The young woman who found him gave him a fighting chance, her quick thinking applying that first dressing may have saved his life. If she had hesitated even a handful of seconds, I would have been working on a dead man."

A few feet behind them, Sergei Emmetovich Ivonov placed his hand on his daughter's shoulder and gave it a firm, affectionate squeeze. Ekatrerina had done him proud this day, and he was not afraid for anyone to know it.

"When can she see him?"

Rick Webb asked after shooting a look of gratitude to the woman who had saved his son's life, remembering the twelve year old girl with the cold blue eyes he had first met so many years ago. The girl who first called him "Uncle Rick" like she was uttering a curse. It had taken months for her to warm to him whenever he would visit them. She was definitely her father's daughter.

"I should be able to arrange it once he's done in imaging and comes out of recovery, wait here and I will send a nurse to collect you when we have him set up in a room."

For the first time since this ordeal began, Kate breathed a sigh of relief. Moments later, her cell phone vibrated with a text message from her mother, she was on her way, with her dad in tow. And they should be there shortly. She responded with the encouraging news from the surgeon who had worked on him, then put her phone away.

"Thank you for being here, Richard." she whispered to him, will you stay?"

"Always." he replied as Martha burst into the waiting room, her cell phone had been turned off in the theater that evening, and she had only recently received the six text messages from Kate. She had arrived just in time to see the fierce hug between her daughter-in-law, and Richard's father. For once in her life she had been rendered speechless.

* * *

**Twenty Four Hours later**

Richard Rodgers slowly drifted into consciousness. As he slowly opened his eyes, he saw Kate sitting next to his bed, her head cradled in her crossed arms on the mattress of his hospital bed next to his right hand. He swung his head to take in his left arm in a sling, where could feel the itch of stitches in his shoulder. He turned his face back to Kate, and slowly slid his right hand to touch the side of her face until she began to rouse.

"We gotta stop meeting like this," he said as her eyes fluttered open, "people are going to talk."

"Rick!" she said aloud in a hoarse whisper, as she grabbed his right hand in both of hers and brought it to her face as if to prove this was real.

"I told you you were stuck with me, Kate," he whispered, as he stroked her tear streaked cheek with his thumb, "will take more than that to get rid of me."

Kate leaned in, grateful he was on nasal cannula instead of a full mask, and kissed him on the lips.

"I'm so glad that you're okay." she whispered, resting her forehead on his.

Rick shifted over on the hospital bed, and tugged her with his good arm. She didn't require much coaxing as she kicked off her shoes and slid onto the bed with him. When they sorted out a mutually comfortable arrangement on the bed, her fatigue began to get the better of her and she began to slip off to sleep. Before her eyes slid shut, rick kissed her on the forehead and whispered in her ear.

"I will always come back for you, love...always."

Soon, he too slipped off to a calm and peaceful sleep, to the calming metronome of Kate's breathing.

Both of them were once again at peace.


	18. Rest and Revelations

**Chapter Eighteen  
****Rest and Revelations**

Rick woke to find Kate still tucked in next to him on his right side. His left shoulder still itched from the stitches and the sling immobilizing his left arm chafed a bit, but the local anesthetic they had given him seemed to be working. He was sure without it his shoulder would be on fire.

He dimly recalled waking up doped to the gills and tugging her in next to him because she had been in tears and looked thoroughly exhausted, but everything else was rather fuzzy. He distinctly remembered being shot. He remembered returning fire and killing his attacker, but after that things were a blur of surreal images, flashes of color, sounds and smells. Other than his shoulder, though he seemed to feel fine, though he could likely credit that to the painkillers. The IV bags would be empty soon which would bring the duty nurse to change them. If they had him on IV plasma and fluids, the bleeding must have been really bad. Kate must have been scared out of her mind with worry.

For the first time, he took in her haggard appearance. From his dim recollections he remembered she'd said something about an OB/GYN appointment that afternoon.

"_Good Lord_," he thought, "_she was out of the loft when she found out I was shot._"

He was well aware what effect this might have on her recovery from her accident and losing the baby. Those had been hammer-blows to her sense of self worth and self respect and his shooting would have been one more blow. He protectively wrapped his right arm more tightly around her waist, tugging her closer to him, felt her settle snugly into his embrace, her body instinctively settling into place, her curves and planes conforming to his.

As she unconsciously snuggled in, seeking a more comfortable position against him, he felt something slender, and unyielding poking into his side. He slipped his right hand between them to pluck the offending instrument, her I-phone, from the pocket of her hoodie. A small, rectangular piece of card stock slipped out with it and slid onto his stomach.

It was the same card stock used by her OB/GYN to print out still images from sonograms. His mind instantly went to the one that was still in the center drawer of his desk at work and his first instinct was sadness, that she was still grieving for Emily, still carrying around the memory of something that was not to be. That was until he flipped it over and saw the date...yesterday's date...on the front.

As he looked more closely he saw not one highlighted peanut shaped embryo, but two...twins. Kate was carrying twins.

"Kate...oh God, Kate..." he whispered as he brushed his index finger against the image of the two tiny lives now growing inside of Kate as his eyes welled up with unshed tears.

Richard Rodgers didn't know if it was the pain meds, the inner turmoil from surviving yet another attempt upon his life, or just the big soft heart he had kept buried deep and cloaked in armor since Alexis died, but suddenly he was overwhelmed by emotions he never thought he would experience again as the dam burst and the tears poured down his cheeks, dripping into Kate's hair as he pulled her closer, careful not to wake her as he softly kissed the top of her head.

He had _failed_ to protect Alexis, _failed_ to keep Kate from being shot, _failed_ to keep danger from taking Emily away from them. _F__ailed_ as a father, as a partner and as a man.

_Never again_.

In that moment, he knew his course was clearly set, his path certain. He would grind his way through whatever physical therapy he had to. Endure whatever pain, hardship or privation that was necessary. He would even stand up to Kate, fight her tooth and nail if he must. (he hoped not)

He would, by GOD protect her _and_ their twins.

He would make it his mission in life to give them a world (or at least a city) that would be safe for them to live in. Keep them safe as they grew up, love them till it hurt, then love them some more. He would show them them every day, so they knew that daddy loved them, just in case (God forbid) his own life was one day required to be forfeit.

"I swear to you on my daughter's grave Kate, I won't fail you again." He whispered into her hair with tears in his eyes.

He placed another soft kiss onto the top of her head before he slipped the sonogram back into her pocket, wrapped his arm around her and slowly drifted off to a troubled fretful sleep, plagued by disturbing dreams.

**Six Hours Later**

Kate was jostled from sleep by a sharp spasm behind her. Up to this point she had slept peacefully wrapped in her husband's temporarily one-armed embrace. He was tossing fitfully in his sleep, whispering incoherently in the throes of whatever dream or nightmare was plaguing his subconscious mind.

"No...please...not them...no...take me instead...NO!"

The pulse rate and blood pressure monitors were beeping out a staccato rhythm in time with his own labored breathing. Suddenly he shot bolt upright, his eyes wild with pain and fear.

"KATE!" he shouted between ragged breaths.

Kate sat up with him, wrapping her arms around his chest and her legs around his waist from behind. She rested her chin on his shoulder and whispered in his ear.

"I'm here, Rick...I've got you...shh...I'm right here."

She slowly rocked the two of them back and forth whispering nonsense words into his ear, with tears in her eyes. She knew something was bothering him, something more than being shot, or waking up in the hospital. Something that was haunting his dreams. She wasn't sure what it was, but she wanted to help him through it.

"I have some news that might make you feel better." Kate whispered into his ear.

Rick smiled weakly, he knew what her news was, but he wanted her to say it. Wanted her to have her moment. Happy that she wasn't going to try to hide it from him, even temporarily.

"I'm...pregnant." She whispered. Rick could hear the nervous apprehension in her voice. Feel it in the way her hands clenched at his chest. The fear that festered in the pit of her stomach and escaped through her very pores.

Rick knew that as heart-wrenching as all this had been been for him since Kate's accident. His anguish was _nothing_ compared to how soul crushing the experience had been for her. She had carried Emily inside of her for ten weeks, had likely just begun to feel the first flutters of her kicking inside of her. Then she was gone in an instant.

She had allowed herself to become a recluse in the loft, not just because of agoraphobia, but because she had felt empty inside without the life that had been growing inside of her. She still blamed herself for losing Emily, and even now _refused_ to get behind the wheel of a car, and needed serious coaxing just to get her into the front passenger seat.

She was trying to reassure him, but he knew that she was scared out of her mind. Not just for herself, or for him, but for the two new lives she was carrying in her womb.

"Rick, I'm scared."

Rick reached down with his right hand and rubbed her knee gently.

"I know...it'll be okay, love, it'll all be okay."

She relaxed a little into his back, settled her head back onto his shoulder and released a shuddering breath. She knew Rick would not let her down. She also knew he was filled with anguish and self doubt about his ability to be a parent. Especially after her mother's revelation about Alexis. Information he would have been better off not knowing. He had just begun to come to terms with her passing. The knowledge that her death could have been prevented had shattered him all over again.

She had her work cut out for her to help him put the pieces back together before the twins were born.

It would be hard...for both of them...but they were in this together.

Always.


	19. Bridging the Divide

**Chapter Nineteen  
****Bridging the Divide**

Richard Rodgers had to spend another twenty four hours in the hospital for observation. When his doctor was informed that Kate was six weeks pregnant, he insisted that Kate also be admitted for observation, as she had been under a great deal of stress since arriving the night before. He became even more concerned when he learned of her previous miscarriage.

While Rick was sleeping, the night shift charge nurse had arrived with a wheelchair to take her to obstetrics. Kate bristled at the very idea of being removed from from Rick's side, even for a short period of time. The more the nurse cajoled, sweet talked, and otherwise tried to get her to cooperate and sit in the wheelchair, the more panicky and defensive Kate got.

When the nurse called for reinforcements in the form of two rather large orderlies, Kate backed away toward Rick's bedside, fully prepared to fight tooth and nail to not be removed from the room. Her anger and fierce pride providing her with strength and inner fortitude that she had forgotten she possessed. She was prepared to stand her ground and fight them all if she had to. For the first time in nearly two years she wished she still had her badge and gun.

Richard Webb walked in on the scene, having gone to the cafeteria one floor down to get her something to eat, just as the two orderlies began to slowly advance on her. Though he was certain they all meant well and that neither of the orderlies intended Kate any real harm, he also recognized that the young RN (likely on her first day in charge) had pushed Kate too hard and allowed the situation to spiral wildly out of control, which angered him almost beyond reason. Thankfully the Navy taught him long ago how to both diffuse situations like this _and_ establish dominance.

"Take one more step toward my daughter-in-law and you will _both_ regret ever being born."

That single statement, barely louder than a stage whisper, was uttered with such cold, deliberate menace and absolute authority that it stopped both men in their tracks. When they turned to face him, they found themselves facing down not just Rear Admiral (Upper Half) Richard A. Webb, United States Navy, (Hoo-RAH!) but also "Nemesis", compared a man whom even their collective worst nightmares couldn't do justice.

Papa bear was definitely in the building, _and he was not amused. _

From the way their shoulders slumped he knew he had made his point. He could see the hint of shame on both of their faces for having to gang up on an emotionally compromised pregnant woman. They were acting on orders from a superior and Webb could respect that, so he gave them some orders of his own.

"Why don't you two boys go find somewhere else to be..._now_."

Though his tone was that of a kindly grandfather chastising naughty little boys, the ice in his pale blue eyes and the hard edge he gave to the word "now" told them that he was _not_ to be defied. The two of them shuffled out without so much as a glance in the young charge nurse's direction.

Nurse Kendall, (according to her name tag) was now sufficiently cowed that she would no longer cause any further trouble and had also learned a valuable lesson in authority. She informed him that this had all begun when she had been instructed to admit Kate and take her to obstetrics, which Webb knew from experience was on the other side of the hospital and a completely different floor. He went ballistic, produced his own State Department ID's and demanded to see the hospital administrator.

When the nervous looking bureaucrat arrived, (having been wakened at three AM on a Friday morning by a panicked attending that a VIP was threatening both legal and public relations problems) Webb threatened to hand the hospital the biggest PR nightmare since the Watergate scandal.

His voice never wavered and he never raised it above a stage whisper, so he would not wake his son as he slept off the remainder of his pain killers, but he made the point that Rick was an FBI agent who had been shot in the street, and causing his wife even more emotional trauma by tearing her away from his bedside, much less the other side of the building, can't be good for the precious cargo she was carrying in her womb either. They could just as easily get her to rest, keep her hydrated, and keep her blood pressure down here.

He threw his own considerable political weight around until they relented and admitted her to the same room as her husband. They even got the doctor who had given the order to apologize for his poor bedside manner and lack of compassion. With the immediate problem averted, The duty nurses set about preparing the empty bed next to Rick's for an occupant.

_'Not that she'll be spending much time in it' _ Webb mused to himself, rather surprised that Rick had managed to stay asleep sleep through the entire exchange.

Little did he know, that Rick hadn't, and had taken in nearly everything that had transpired after the two orderlies had arrived. Kate's angry, fearful outburst had roused him from his drug induced slumber. He had been half a heartbeat from opening his eyes and intervening himself, when he heard Webb enter and leap immediately to Kate's defense without so much as a second thought. 0 0

As sleep once again slowly enveloped him, a small smile ghosted his face. Though he hadn't thought he could ever warm to his father, his actions while defending Kate spoke louder than words. He could sleep easier knowing that the woman he loved, who was once again carrying his children, would be in good hands.

* * *

Lanie Parrish actually felt a little bit jealous of Kate at times like this one. She had gone shopping for a dress to wear to the ceremony knowing she would likely be going alone. One of her friends at the hospital where she had treatment privileges offered to let her "borrow" his boyfriend, Toby for the evening so she wouldn't have to dance alone. She and Javi had only been on their "break" for a little over a month after that disastrous double date with Kevin and Jenny.

She knew she had reacted badly. She knew she had been whilst she was doing it, but she felt powerless against her own foolish terror of commitment. She couldn't even really hold it against Jenny if she really thought about it, that poor girl did not have a malicious bone in her entire body. She was the perfect woman for Kevin Ryan, even if watching the two of them made her want to go into sugar shock.

Lanie had been engaged once before. The man had jilted her at the altar without so much as hint of warning, even his best man had stood there sheepishly waiting or him to show up. A few weeks after her complete and utter devastating mortification, the arrogant ass had come loving up on her like nothing had happened. He was lucky the body farm where she trained in forensics was so far away or it would have had a new resident that the grad school who ran it didn't know about.

The hurt, pain and rejection had been weighed heavily upon her as a constant distraction right through her first case at OCME involving Alexis Castle. When Kate had told her in confidence that it had come to light that the poor child had actually been poisoned, she had been shocked, angry and appalled at the suggestion that she would do such a shoddy job.

That was until she actually looked at the case file.

She pored back over her old notes from the case for nearly the entire weekend after she had cussed Kate out and hung up on her in an angry huff. Wanting to prove that she had busted her ass on the case. When she really started looking for anything she might have overlooked, however, to her dismay, she found them with relative ease.

Mislabeled tissue and blood samples, some of which were conveniently missing, forged documents from a non-existent lab, Tox screens that were sent, logged as carried out, but with no verifiable results retrned, not to mention the lack of a full autopsy.

Things that even back then she would never have missed, as green as she was that first week at OCME. She had been far too eager to please. Far too willing to accept the word of complete strangers that all of the tests were properly run and their findings logged before she had signed off on the check-box for "natural causes."

Mistakes she quite simply would _not _have made had she not been so absolutely devastated by her disastrous walk down the aisle and her "fiance's" rejection of her at the altar.

She recalled that she had met patrol officer Kate Beckett at a crime scene about a week later, and they had become fast friends.

To this day, _nothing _quite sets off her fight or flight response (mostly flight) quite like the words "marriage" and "wedding." Her fear of matrimony had become so deeply ingrained, so fatally intertwined with her anguish over that poor dead little girl that she had buried it...all of it...into the job. When she did go out and let her hair down, or went out with someone long enough for one thing to lead to another, she would run for the hills and turtle up at even the hint of the word matrimony in relation to herself. Which was weird because she loved to go to the things when they were for other people.

She just made sure she was in the bathroom "powdering her nose" when the bouquet toss part of the program came up.

She had become cold and distant the very night that Jenny asked her unfortunate question. She had stayed that way for several days, flip flopping between the silent treatment and cutting remarks to him, until Javi had finally had enough and called her on it. The fight that broke them up (about a week after the accident when Kate had lost her baby) had been brutal, passionate and incendiary...and not in the fun sexy way. They completely avoided each other for nearly a week after, to the point where she had even switched shifts with Perlmutter to escape. Everybody else was simply too worried about Rick and Kate to notice.

When Kate had asked them all to meet her and Rick at Remy's to celebrate her accelerated recovery from the agoraphobia that had nearly crippled her, they couldn't in good conscience refuse her. Thankfully they were at least back on speaking terms by then. They had resolved, with Kevin's help to keep up appearances so as not to hurt her feelings or hamper her recovery. Sadly the car accident outside had done the latter for them.

She still had copies of the pictures of the two of them at Rick and Kate's wedding. She looked at them a lot, more often than not with a glass of wine.

Javier had not deserved what she had done to him, what she had put him through. He hadn't even hinted at the possibility of marriage, or even vaguely in that direction, only wanted them to take things one step at a time. He would have been willing to wait until she was ready, she was certain of it, even if they ran off to Atlantic City and eloped. If she hadn't felt embarrassed about being put on the spot , maybe they could have worked through it. He had seemed every bit as flustered and put on the spot by Jenny's innocent comment as she had been, now that she looked back on.

She hoped that one day, she would be able to set things right. To make this up to him. Even if thy didn't get back together and ended up dating other people, she didn't want to lose him entirely from her life.

She loved him too much.

* * *

When Lanie showed up at the hospital lobby, both of Kate's parents, (which was difficult for her to conceive given Kate had thought her mother had been dead for nearly the entire time they'd known each other) were near the elevator talking with Martha, who had her arm linked with a distinguished looking older gentleman she didn't recognize. Which wasn't a surprise, as Kate had told her more than once how flighty Martha Rodgers was when it came to men.

He was tall, nearly as tall as Rick, with a proud, military sort of bearing that reminded her of Javier, but with an air of unfettered authority that the detective lacked. He was clearly upper echelon, where Javi seemed more like a non-com. The esprit de corps was still there in spades though. It was clear this man had clawed his way up the hard way. She could see why Martha liked him.

What this man and Javi also shared was that faraway gleam in the eye held by men who had seen combat up close and personal and had not quite come out entirely whole on the other side. If he was anything like Javi, he probably didn't like to speak of it very often either.

"Lanie!" Kate shouted, waving at her with nearly wild abandon.

She seemed overjoyed to see her, almost as much as she was to be getting out of this hospital. But not nearly as much as she was glad to be bringing her husband out with her. She hated hospitals with a passion, she had been in and out of them for far to long and too many times to count, as she had had to get her father's stomach pumped more than once when her dad had drank so much he'd gotten alcohol poisoning. Not to mention the time she had spent nearly a month in one after she had been shot while she was in physical therapy. It was no surprise she hated them now.

After a brief but heartfelt hug, Kate dragged her by the arm to join the others.

"Lanie, you've met my mom and dad, and Martha of course, but I would like you to meet Admiral Richard Webb, Rick's father." Kate said to her with remarkable good cheer.

To say that Lanie was flabbergasted would have been a major understatement. She would have been far less shocked had Kate waved her arms in the air and clucked like a chicken.

"Rick's...wait...what?" Lanie Parrish seemed to lost the capacity to express herself.

This was going to be a very interesting summer.


	20. Epilogue

**Chapter 20  
****Epilogue**

* * *

An article on Page Six  
Of the New York Daily Ledger

_James Beckett, Attorney at Law, known most notably as the father of  
__best selling mystery novelist and former NYPD Detective, Katherine  
__Beckett was seen last night at Le Cirque in the company of a woman  
__named Jessica Bennet, a security specialist with the U.S. State Department._

_A widower following the stabbing death of his wife Johanna Beckett in  
__Washington Heights back in 1999, now known to have been perpetrated  
__at the behest of disgraced former New York Senator William Bracken (who  
__was subsequently killed by one of his conspirators) to hide his cover up of  
__the accidental shooting death of FBI Special Agent Robert Armand in 1997.__  
_

_They seemed to be very happy to be in each others company and this columnist  
__has it on good authority that a ring had indeed exchanged hands between the main  
__course and desert. We here at the Ledger wish Mr. Beckett and Ms. Bennet best  
__wishes and many years of happiness together._

Jim and Johanna quietly re-married in a low key, intimate Justice of the Peace ceremony in New York City's Federal building witnessed only by close family and spent their second "honeymoon" at the Beckett family cabin in the Adirondacks, where neither of them came up for air for several days.

Only a select few people would ever know that their original wedding license was indeed still valid, thought a second one was on file in New York State under the name Jessica Beckett.

In order to spend more time with her family, she accepted a presidential appointment to be the next Deputy Director of Intelligence of the CIA, and turned over operational command of Project: Archangel to a ghost a "dead" man she knew quite well. A man who's penance, like hers and Richard Webb's before her came with a price.

Once upon a time, his name had been Roy Montgomery.

* * *

Ekaterina Svetlana Ivanova Beauregard had discovered a new career path for herself. One that allowed her to find both an outlet for her thirst for action, and her new found desire to help people. Due to her timely intervention saving Rick's life the day he was shot, Doctor Elizabeth Morgan sponsored her for her hospital's EMT training program paid for with a generous donation from her "Uncle Richard."

Paramedic Ekaterina "Wildcat" Beauregard would one day earn multiple commendations for valor in the NYFD and save many lives. Her father was gratified that she found her own calling, one of both honor and service to the city he had come to call home.

Her daughter Nikita Sofia Beauregard would one day graduate with honors from Julliard and play first chair for the New York Symphony Orchestra, cheered on by her mother, her grandparents and her her extended family in the Webb/Rodgers/Beckett households.

* * *

Though her husband, Patrick Jane would still alternate between earning his professional respect driving him to fits of near homicidal distraction, Teresa Lisbon quickly, but methodically worked her way up the promotion grid.

First to Special Agent, then Special Agent in charge of her own team, and then eventually to find herself as Rick's assistant director when Special Agent Avery was promoted to director of the Los Angeles field office. Rick knew that when he had put in his twenty and decided to retire he would be grooming her to take his place. He had managed to come full circle.

* * *

Time inexorably marched forward days and weeks turned to months as the twins inside of Kate Beckett Rodgers grew. Kate studiously refused to drive a car during her pregnancy, or even entertain the notion of so much as sitting in the front passenger seat of one. She rarely ventured out of the loft other than to her prenatal doctor visits, and then only if they used the car service, because Rick insisted she get some air. She was positively paranoid about allowing nothing to go wrong this time.

Though her agoraphobia did not raise it's ugly head during her pregnancy, she did have more than one panic attack while stuck in midtown bumper to bumper traffic during rush hour on the way to her prenatal visits. They had taken to getting her to them as early as possible. Other than that, she stayed either in the loft or spent time tending the roses in the rooftop garden. She found tending the roses and talking to them like they were her unborn children to be quite soothing.

The day soon came when her water broke, and Rick rushed her to Presbyterian Hospital to give birth to their two new arrivals. Now held in Kate's arms in her hospital bed. A little girl named Johanna Alexis Rodgers, and a boy named David Christopher Rodgers. Both shared their older sister's vibrant red hair. David had Kate's beautiful greenish gold eyes. While little Johanna, who so resembled Alexis it moved Richard Rodgers to tears had his deep baby blues.

While Kate slept most of the next day away, awakening only for the regular breast feedings for her babies, whom she had affectionately dubbed her "wonder twins" for saving her from the depression that losing Emily had thrown over her soul. Rick was busy on a project that he and Martha refused to divulge to anyone. Shooing family away from the loft whenever someone would drop by to see what they were up to. All anybody could discern, it had something to do with baby furniture.

That evening, Richard Webb arrived at the maternity ward from Washington DC with an armload of stuffed animals for his grandchildren's bassinet. For the first time in his adult life he did not have to sneak in to see his family's littlest ones.

Kate sat up in her hospital bed and watched the avenging angel "Nemesis" a man who had sown fear in the hearts of the American intelligence community for over forty five years gently cradling his tiny twin grandchildren and quietly singing them to sleep in a shaky tenor voice more tender than she had ever thought the gruff intelligence operative capable of. Tears were streaming down his cheeks as he sang softly lulling them both to sleep in his powerful arms as Martha looked on.

"_The minstrel boy to the war is gone,  
In the ranks of the dead you will find him.  
His father's sword he has girded on,  
and his wild harp slung behind him._

_Land of Song, said the warrior bard,  
though all the world betrays thee,  
One sword, at least thy rights shall guard,  
One faithful harp shall praise thee."_

* * *

The day Kate and the twins came home from the hospital, with Sergei in the driver's seat carrying full arms, three of his most trusted men standing guard, Rick led her up the stairs of the loft to show her the surprise that he and Martha had prepared for her and the twins.

When they reached the top of the stairs and Kate started for the guest room, thinking that was where he wanted to go, Rick touched her shoulder and turned her toward Alexis' old room.

He opened the door, flicked on the light, and where once had been a shrine to his first baby girl so cruelly taken from him, a symbol of his most heart wrenching loss and deepest darkest pain, there was now a fully appointed nursery with brand new furniture, freshly painted a deep forest green with an elephant motif.

A framed photo of Alexis Marie Harper Castle hung on the wall over the crib, and the stuffed animals that had once stood silent guard over her long empty bed were now arranged on various surfaces throughout the room. When Kate turned and looked at him, tears falling unabashedly down her cheeks and a question in her eyes, he merely shrugged his shoulders and said,

"She would have wanted them to have it."

When Kate put their babies down to sleep in the crib in their brand new room and switched on the baby monitor, she turned back on her way out of the nursery to look lovingly at her newborn babies her heart overflowing with love as she turned out the light.

Out of the corner of her eye, Kate could have sworn she saw Alexis with a small pink bundle held carefully in her arms standing beside the crib where her little brother and sister slept, silently keeping watch, a small approving smile on her face. Kate blew her a kiss and silently bid her and Emily to watch over them for her while they slept.

All was now right with their universe.

**The End**


End file.
